Dream a Little Death, page 5
It sounded like a happy ending.
But for some reason, it didn’t feel like one.
After the doctor left, Miles pulled out his phone and started typing.
“Sharing the good news?” I asked.
He put his phone back into his pocket. “Yeah. I’m so relieved.” He didn’t look relieved. There was sweat beading on his upper lip.
“Listen,” I said, “if you want to go home for a while and clean up, you know, eat something, rest, whatever, I can stay with her.”
“Not to worry.” Miles opened the door. “I’ve got people for that. Thanks for everything, though. Really.” He literally pushed me out of the room.
On the way back to the valet station, I checked my messages, and nearly collided with a woman also staring down at her phone. A beat later, I spun around and watched her disappear into the hospital. It was odd. I had a feeling that I knew her. But it wasn’t until later that it came to me.
The day we’d met she’d looked thin and faded.
Today she’d looked bright and shiny as a new penny.
Lizeth the housekeeper, all the way from Glendale.
Chapter 8
A black bug with a pink head and pink spots crawled across the top of the big, wooden desk. He was moving pretty fast, for a bug. I watched him traverse a mountain of neatly stacked files, poke at a paper clip with his feelers, sidestep some folders, then plunge off the edge to an uncertain fate.
I empathized.
Shortly after I’d gotten home from the hospital I’d received a call from a Lieutenant Doug Hepworth of the L.A.P.D. He was hoping I could come downtown for a talk. It wouldn’t take long, he’d promised. I’d assumed he was interested in what had happened at the Mayan Theater Sunday night, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Lieutenant Hepworth led me into his small, windowless office, sat me down in a chair, then disappeared to get us a couple of coffees. The room was sparsely furnished. A bookcase, a filing cabinet, two framed photographs of a couple posed in front of a Hawaiian sunset, the desk and the black spotted bug. While I waited for him to return I scanned the books on the shelf. The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The 48 Laws of Power, a perennial favorite in American prison libraries. A DVD of 300. I fidgeted a little in my chair, unsticking my thighs from the cracked vinyl seat.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Black.”
Lieutenant Hepworth had ten-day stubble and a lazy eye that I found disconcerting. He kicked the door closed, then set two Styrofoam cups down on the desk.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he said. “I understand that this must be very difficult for you. Because it’s personal. And you’re probably harboring some guilt about your part in all of it.”
That was taking it a bit too far. “Look, I’m not trying to let myself off the hook. But the more I think about it, the less certain I am that it was a suicide attempt.”
“Excuse me?”
His left eyeball had wandered over to the outer corner of his eye, which made it look like he could see behind his head. I imagined it would be an effective tool in interrogations, but right now I was the one looking for answers.
“Why would Maya stage such an elaborate suicide,” I asked, “and not leave behind a note explaining herself?”
I’d thought it was a good question, but Lieutenant Hepworth didn’t look particularly impressed.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s something else. Maya had just gone to Neiman Marcus and bought herself a ton of clothes. I’m talking an entire trousseau! Does that sound like someone planning to shoot herself through the heart?”
Lieutenant Hepworth pulled a pen out of his drawer and placed it on top of a blank sheet of paper. “In my experience, shooters, much like jumpers, have a markedly lower history of depression, bipolar disorder, or substance abuse than we would find in suicides who use other methods, such as pills. Offsetting that, however, is an unfortunate tendency toward impulsivity. You might also consider the fact that men shoot themselves in the head for maximum expediency, while women shoot themselves in the chest in order to leave behind a pretty corpse.”
Misogynist.
“In any case,” he concluded, “we really need to move on now, Miss Black.”
Move on? I hadn’t even gotten to the part about the mysterious stalkers Miles had mentioned. “But Maya—”
“We’re not here to talk about Maya,” he interrupted. “Whoever that person might be.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, confused. “If we’re not here to talk about Maya, why are we here?”
He passed something across the desk.
A black and white photograph of Uncle Ray standing outside my front door.
It took me a minute to clear my head. “This is about my uncle? You have him under surveillance?” I pushed the photo away. “This is absurd. Ray is a twenty-three-year veteran of this force and the most honest man I know. Please don’t tell me you’re from Internal Affairs.”
He said, “I’m just helping out some friends.”
“Well, you can tell your friends that someone is setting Ray up. And they’re not going to get away with it. You are not going to get away with it.”
The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Interesting, you threatening me. I’m going to ignore it for now. Just answer the question. Do you or do you not recognize this photograph?”
I pursed my lips. “It’s Captain Ray Laffitte. He came to see me on Saturday.”
“Family is everything,” he said. “Here’s another photo.” This one was a shot of Ray giving me a hug as he left my house. “Notice that the box your uncle had in his hand when he arrived is no longer in his hand.”
“Oh, my god,” I said. “It was a pie.”
“Do you think this is a joke, Miss Black?”
“Of course not. But I really don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I’d like you to look at the time stamp on that last picture.”
It read 5:25 p.m.
I looked up. “So?”
He passed another photo over to me. This one was a shot of me opening the door just after Ray had left.
“Look at the time stamp, please.”
Five twenty-six p.m.
“Call me crazy,” he said, “but I find it odd that exactly one minute after your uncle leaves your house a manila envelope magically appears on your doorstep.”
To be perfectly honest, that made two of us.
“Well?” He tapped his pen on the desk.
“Well, what?” I asked. “I like to shop online. I get deliveries all day long. It was probably something from Amazon.”
“Funny,” he said. “I don’t have any pictures of FedEx or UPS or the US Postal Service showing up at your house between five twenty-five and five twenty-six. Which suggests not only that the envelope in question did not contain something you purchased online, but that the person or persons who dropped it off had some experience with surveillance countermeasures.”
Surveillance countermeasures? That did not sound good.
“Hello? Miss Black?” He glanced up at the clock. “I don’t have all day.”
My throat was starting to close. I was feeling lightheaded. But there was no way I’d give him the satisfaction of putting my head between my knees. Instead, I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
“Miss Black? You have nothing at all to say?” Lieutenant Hepworth jotted something down on his paper. “Well, then, I’ll keep talking. Because what seems pretty obvious to me is that that manila envelope and whatever was inside it was intended for your uncle Ray.”
I swallowed hard. “That isn’t possible.”
Lieutenant Hepworth leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “I’m thinking that it is. And I’m also thinking that your uncle will be picking it up sometime very soon.”
It seems so obvious in retrospect. That right there was the moment I should have told Lieutenant Hepworth that the manila envelope contained a cash payment for my services—which I was planning to declare, by the way. And that it had nothing whatsoever to do with my uncle. And that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But as I sat there, my cheeks growing hotter, my palms getting stickier, I wasn’t sure about anything. And the last thing I wanted to do was give someone I didn’t trust something he might be able to use as ammunition. Against me. Or worse yet, my uncle.
“Am I free to go?” I asked. “Unless you’re going to be charging me with something, in which case I’d like to make a phone call.”
He rose from his chair. “You’re free to go, Miss Black. Before you do, however, I want to be sure you understand the severity of the situation. When we prove what Ray’s been doing—and we will prove it, that I promise you—your uncle’s going down. Are you familiar with the Rampart scandal? Back in the nineties, a handful of bad cops nearly destroyed this department. Because of their criminal misconduct, a hundred convictions were overturned and dozens of lawsuits were filed. Do you get it now? Every single arrest Ray Laffitte made during the course of his long and allegedly distinguished career is going to be called into question. Every single time he’s been called to testify against some criminal, well, that’s fucked, too, pardon my French. Because your uncle’s dirty. And the taxpayers of this city are going to pay the price.”
I stood. Lieutenant Hepworth did the same. He knew I wasn’t going to shake his hand, so he didn’t put it out. He just met my gaze with his lazy eye.
“Oh.” He grabbed the edge of the door. “One more thing.”
I should have seen it coming.
“I’m going after you, too.” He smiled broadly. “I’m thinking accessory before the fact, accessory after the fact, co-conspirator—hey, maybe I’ll get lucky and have enough to put you away as a joint principal. So I’d watch my back if I were you. And you might want to tell your mother and grandmother to watch their backs, too. People get judged by the company they keep.”
This man had no idea what he was talking about. I knew that. I also knew that I was in the middle of something ugly. And that it was Miles McCoy and his crazy noir tour and his crazy five figures who’d put me there. Which meant maybe I was the only one in the position to make things right. But there wasn’t much time for my uncle.
Maybe even less for Maya Duran.
I reached down to grab my purse and jacket. And there he was again. The black bug with the pink head and pink spots. Against all odds he’d made it up to the eighteenth floor and survived a perilous fall. He deserved another chance.
I scooped him up in a tissue, and carried him down in the elevator with me. Just past a homeless encampment I found some shrubs, and I put him down next to the star jasmine. He burrowed into the dirt, and then he was gone.
Chapter 9
I raced home. That $40,000 was a ticking time bomb. How could I have been so stupid? The second I saw what was inside that manila envelope I should’ve gone straight to the closest bank and opened a safety deposit box. Even petty criminals know not to leave a paper trail. But it was Saturday night, and the bank was closed. And the next day was Sunday. And after that, well, I guess I kind of liked the feeling of having all that money at my fingertips. It felt illicit. Sexy. Crazy. Fun. The party, however, was clearly over. I’d canceled the cars, canceled the picnic boxes, canceled the private room at the Varnish. Now I had to get rid of the cash before the cops showed up at my door with a warrant, and Uncle Ray’s life went up in smoke.
My hand was trembling as I punched in the alarm code. As soon as I was inside I ran into the bedroom, slid my hand between the box spring and mattress, and when my fingers brushed against the envelope, I let out a huge sigh of relief. Which turned out to be somewhat premature. On account of the envelope being empty.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
This made no sense whatsoever.
I’d put the envelope under the mattress myself. I’d counted the money beforehand, and it was all there. Forty thousand dollars. And no one had been in and out of the house since then except me. And Teddy, of course.
Impossible.
Teddy wouldn’t steal my money. He didn’t even know there was any money. Plus, he’d been glued to my side the entire time he was over.
There was one other possibility. I’d been robbed by professionals. That had to be it. I’d obviously rushed in too quickly to notice that the place had been ransacked.
But no such luck.
My laptop was on the coffee table, exactly where I’d left it. And there was my flatscreen T.V., my Bluetooth speakers, my antique opera glasses, and my faux-fur jacket, which was by Alexander McQueen and worth a pretty penny. What kind of amateur leaves all that stuff behind? No kind. Meaning no one had broken in. I’d set the alarm before I’d left this morning, and no one knew the code except me.
And Uncle Ray.
Who’d installed a state-of-the-art security system for me, right after I’d moved into the house.
A girl on her own, he’d insisted, can never be too careful.
Suddenly, I felt cold all over. I had to get out of there and think. I grabbed my purse, and as I was shutting the door, Teddy and Engelbart came out.
“Hey,” Teddy said.
“Hey! Actually, I’m really glad to see you.”
He smiled. “I’m glad to see you, too. I wanted to—”
“Stop talking,” I said. “I need to ask you a question.”
Teddy’s smile crumpled.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Forget it.” He shook me off. “What’s the question?”
I didn’t have time to soothe anybody’s ego right now. “I was wondering if you saw anything strange around here today. After I left. Like anyone at my door. Peeking in the windows, maybe. Or trying to get around the back.” Actually, who said it had to have happened today? It could have been any time in the last few days. The thought made me physically ill.
“Are you okay?” Teddy asked. “What is going on?” Engelbart had spied a corgi on the other side of the street and was pulling on his leash. “Stop it, boy!”
“So is that a no?” I asked sharply.
“I didn’t see anything,” he said.
“Great.” I made a beeline for my car.
Teddy stood by as I slammed the door shut. “Sorry, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was on my computer.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “It’s not your responsibility.”
“Don’t be like that. Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?”
I had no idea. I couldn’t go to Ray. It would break his heart. How could I ask him why he’d turned up out of the blue at my house? And what he knew about the $40,000 that had been dropped at my door a minute after he’d left? And was now inexplicably missing?
Gram.
Gram would have some insight into this situation. I could drive over to her house, choke down some kombucha tea, and see what I could find out. But the truth is, I’m not the subtlest of inquisitors. And I’d promised Ray I wouldn’t add to Gram’s stress. Which, unfortunately, left me with only one other source of misinformation—sorry, information.
I sighed.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing, but mean your mother.
Chapter 10
I can’t say I was surprised when my car didn’t start. It had been that kind of day. Week. Life? At least I could rely on Venice Tow. They showed up when they said they would, jacked up the car, and took off for North Hollywood, where my longtime mechanic, Vlad the Impaler, was on standby. In the meantime, I had to get to my mother’s. Teddy offered me a ride, but it seemed tacky to accept after I’d been so rude. Thank goodness for Uber.
Five minutes later, a red Maserati pulled up in front of my house. Only in L.A. I gave the address to the driver, who was working on his broker’s license and bursting with information about Trousdale, the hilly subdivision at the northeast end of Beverly Hills that my mother called home. Who knew, for example, that in 1977 Realtor-to-the-stars Mike Silverman had taken out a ten-page ad in a Tehran magazine, singlehandedly making Trousdale the number one destination for Persians fleeing the revolution, including my Uber driver’s entire extended family? What I did know was that Elvis and Frank Sinatra had once lived there, and that these days celebrities were flooding back in to reclaim the pristine examples of mid-century modern chic, which I’d venture to say did not include my mother’s faded pink neo-Hawaiian abode, with its lava rock walls and chipped Easter Island–esque lawn statuary.
My Uber driver dropped me at the curb. “Looks like your mom hasn’t made any upgrades. And there’s no privacy.” His voice was heavy with regret. “She’d be lucky to get $500 a square foot.”
It probably didn’t help that the woman was holding yet another one of the impromptu lawn sales that so endeared her to her neighbors. This time there was more crap than usual: fraying towels, novelty picture frames, a hat rack, sequined separates of unknown vintage.
“Thank god you’re here.” My mother, relaxing on a lawn chair under a plastic umbrella, peered at me from beneath her visor. “Can you see what that man over there wants? I’m trying to price this item.” Which looked to be a curling iron, but could easily have been a vibrator.
The man, who had a pompadour and carried a man-bag, wanted to know if my mother was willing to sell the astrology-themed leggings she was wearing, which to my mind constituted the key element of her porn-star-meets-yoga-mommy ensemble, along with her signature water bottle fanny pack. I distracted him with a Big Mouth Billy Bass, still in its original packaging.
“So?” My mother pulled up another chair for me.
“So.” I sat down. “I wanted to talk about Ray.”
“Oh, Ray.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Now don’t get defensive on me. I know you think the man walks on water, but trust me. He’s not perfect.”
I glowered at her. “Who is?”
“Thanks a lot. I did the best I could, considering.”
“Considering what? That you couldn’t help with my homework because you were too busy stocking the condom bowl and lugging cases of Aqua Net backstage?”
