Breakdown, p.14
Breakdown, page 14
I said, “She hooked?”
“Maybe…the info came via her landlady.”
“The same one convinced Zina was weird.”
“Nasty old crone,” said Ott. “But maybe she was on to something. She said she’d try to say something to Zina and get a blank look, like Zina was off in another world. She also suspected drugs but none showed up when I searched Zina’s apartment. There were a lot of liquor bottles, which supports the landlady’s claim that Zina would bring home guys when she was stone-drunk.”
“That’s the evidence of prostitution?”
Ott nodded. His expression was pained, as if reluctant to admit the possibility. Identifying with his victim. The good ones always did.
“She said Zina had no job—and I never found one—would sleep all day and go out ‘all tarted up.’ If Zina was a pro, it does make her a higher-risk victim. But neither West Hollywood or L.A. Vice ever arrested her and when I found a couple of local bars she frequented, all I got was that she sometimes tended to overdo, no solicitations of customers. No one remembers her getting picked up, period. More like they felt sorry for her.”
He shook his head. “Bottom line, Doctor, ‘actress’ didn’t demean her and it got her case in the paper.”
“All those complaints from the landlady,” I said. “Were there plans to evict her?”
“Nope. For all old biddy’s bitching, Zina paid her rent on time, was quiet, and, except when she brought guys home, stuck to herself. That was my big obstacle, her being a loner. No friends I could locate, no local family, just that tight-ass brother in Cleveland. Maybe that was a symptom of a psychological problem, you tell me.”
I said, “How’d the brother come to report her missing?”
“He tried to call her for Thanksgiving and couldn’t get through. But he waited a full month after Thanksgiving to report, got squirrelly when I asked him why. So we’re not talking dedication. Worst thing in MP is a time lag. It was like fishing without bait.”
“What was the landlady’s name?”
“Frances Bynum, but forget talking to her. She was old back then—eighties—and breathing with an oxygen tank. Bitter about everything.”
“Anything from Zina’s neighbors?”
“No backup on the lifestyle issues but a couple of people did say she could look spaced out. But overall she hadn’t made much of an impression.”
Ott took a bite, dabbed his mouth. “I didn’t like Mrs. Bynum but she may have been right about Zina being a pro. I never found any employment records and her checking account showed frequent but irregular cash deposits—hundred here, two hundred there. Also, I found some sex toys in her nightstand along with condoms of various styles and sizes. A john-book would’ve been great but no such luck. Nothing of a personal nature, period. The apartment looked more like a temporary setup, even though she’d been there for a while. My assumption was if someone killed her, they took anything incriminating.”
“Do you see murder as likely?”
“More likely than any other possibility but I really don’t know, Doc. If it happened in her apartment, someone cleaned up really well, not a trace of nasty. Maybe she did outcall and went to the wrong guy’s crib and he covered his tracks. If the john-book, her license, and her house-key were in a purse, easy as pie. More to the point for you, no one ever saw her with a child. I can see why you’d want to know your victim’s kid is okay, but do you really think some crazy woman talking about a movie-star mama can lead you to him?”
“Probably not.”
He studied me some more, ate some sandwich. “I get you, Doctor. You’re going to do what you can until you’re convinced there’s nothing more to do. That was my approach. Sometimes it worked.”
I said, “Zelda’s given name was Jane Smith.”
He put his sandwich down. “That so? Her and the guy from Cleveland being named Humperdinck would be more impressive, but let’s go with that, say your Zelda was my Zina’s daughter. You still end up with two women decades apart. Even if I could connect you with the family and I can’t, you’d be unlikely to learn anything. We’re not talking a close-knit bunch—only that brother ever bothered to call me and he did it once. And when he talked about Zina, it was kind of…clinical. That’s the reason I felt she’d been an outcast.”
He smiled. “This brings back memories. Guess that’s what you get, talking to a psychologist.”
—
Despite framing lunch as my treat, Ott tried to pay. “Forget it, Doctor, what I gave you wasn’t worth the water.”
I had Elizabeth wrap my sandwich and threw down enough cash to make her beam. Ott said, “Fine, you win,” and I walked him to a little blue Mazda RX.
We shook hands again, a bit less energetically.
“Good luck, Doctor.”
“Thanks. Do you recall Zina’s address?”
“Man, you don’t let go. Wetherly Drive between Beverly and Third, round the corner from the Four Seasons, but you won’t find it. Couple of years ago, someone put up a huge condo development.”
Couple of years ago.
He’d taken the time to drive by.
—
Back in my office, I phoned Sherry Andover and told her about the colchicine.
She said, “Herbals? Okay, thanks for the tip. Only thing we ever find around here is dope, not yuppie stuff, but I’ll check. Did Judy reach you?”
“Judy who?”
“Judy Meers, at the men’s place. She told me she had something to pass along.”
“Any idea what?”
“Not a clue,” said Andover. “I’m not one for prying.”
—
Judith Meers said, “Sorry, I lost your number, Sherry gave it to me, I was just about to call.”
“Appreciate it. What’s up?”
“After you were here I asked around. No one remembered Zelda until this morning when one of our alumni stopped by to donate clothing and said they’d done some drinking together. More important for you, he claims to have met her son.”
“When did that happen?”
“I tried to pin him down time-wise but the best he could say was when he lived here, which was around three years ago.”
Shortly after the show’s cancellation. Shortly before the Central cop had seen her living on the street.
She slid down fast.
“What’s this man’s name and how can I reach him?”
“We know him as Chet Brett but I doubt that’s genuine. He claims he’s Norwegian and he does speak with a little bit of accent. Reaching him is going to be tricky because he lives out of his car. I asked him how I could get in touch but he ignored me and left.”
“Donating clothing,” I said.
“He does it once in a while, I suspect he dives Goodwill bins. But, still, altruism’s a good sign, right?”
“It’s a step,” I said. “What kind of car does he drive?”
“An old green one. Sorry, I’m not into makes.”
“Any idea where he parks?”
“I saw him once, not far from us, east on Sunset. A few blocks west of downtown. There’s a couple of vacant lots near a building supply place. I was driving from campus and he was sitting on the hood of his car and drinking.”
“Thanks, Judith.”
“There is one thing that might help you find him. He’s not exactly…typical.”
—
How many five-foot-tall, homeless Norwegian immigrants claiming to be ex-merchant-marines could there be out there?
When I called Milo and gave him the details, he said, “Chet Brett. About as Nordic as tostadas.”
“You’re not into lutefisk with a side of refried?”
“Yum…let’s see.” Click click click. “Got a Chester Ernest Brett in Saugus, six one, two sixty, Caucasian…a Chetley Armando Brett, Compton, eighteen years old, black, five nine, one forty…Chester NMI Brett-Lopez, Malibu, Hispanic, six foot, one seventy, twenty-five. Your guy into clever disguises? Maybe walks on his knees?”
I said, “The way things are going, I’m ready to join the circus to find out.”
“That bad, huh? You hear from Dub Ott?”
“Just talked to him.” I summarized the meeting.
He said, “Pastrami? You could gain weight on this one—no, scratch that, you probably sat there exercising iron control and took the damn thing to go, right?”
“Blanche digs nitrites as much as you do.”
“I find that doubtful…so, no obvious link between Zelda and Zina except for the Smith thing.”
“It’s thin but it’s something.”
“I do find myself intrigued.”
“Really?”
“Call it empathy, Alex. Known otherwise as when you’re up a creek at least be nice to your pals. I’ll do some checking, maybe Dub missed something.”
I hung up thinking: dead mother, dead daughter.
The worst kind of family tradition.
CHAPTER
22
Doing nothing chews at me and can lead me to bad places. I sat in my office, flooded with ugly outcomes. When that grew unbearable, I left Robin a note and drove to Echo Park, looking for a five-foot Norwegian living in a pea-green jalopy.
The vacant lot Judith Meers had described was fenced, with a construction notice hanging from the chain link. No sign of man or car up and down Sunset.
I didn’t make another try but for the next three days I switched futility channels, shifting my daily run to lower Bel Air. Ending up on St. Denis Lane and passing Enid DePauw’s spread before circling back.
Tree-cooled streets and gentle slopes provided a nice workout and allowed me to rationalize. I met up with squirrels, rabbits, feral cats grown chubby on gourmet trash. On the third day, I locked eyes with a stray dog that turned out to be a runty coyote hybrid. Mangy and feisty, he stood his ground for a few seconds before slipping into a thicket of pines, the only remnant of his presence a faint thrum of foliage.
Easy to disappear, here. I wondered if Zelda had hidden herself before scaling Enid DePauw’s wall.
Living rough, with only a candy bar for sustenance, had she grown hungry and reached for an onion-like bulb sprouting in the greenery?
The pain would’ve blossomed slowly but steadily. How long had it taken her muddled mind to figure out something had gone terribly wrong? To lead her to seek refuge in a stranger’s backyard.
How long had it taken her to die?
—
For all that zoology, the only humans I came across were motorists at the wheels of German and British cars and uniformed maids walking fluffy dogs and chatting with one another.
On the fourth day, I stayed home, stretched, and tried to recall some long-unused karate moves. Watch out, Chuck Norris.
After feeding the fish, showering and changing, I got in the Seville and drove back to St. Denis Lane.
—
This time I continued past the DePauw estate. A hundred yards up, the road slimmed and picked up grade. As I continued north, homesites shifted from flat acreage to wildly optimistic hillside perches. Less than three miles later, I was within walking distance from the ranch house on Bel Azura Drive.
The two properties Zelda had trespassed were closer to each other than I’d have expected. Had she focused on this area, specifically?
Given her mental state, no reason to think intent was a relevant concept.
I made the turn, anyway.
Bel Azura radiated the same treeless sterility and eye-bleaching glare. I retraced Milo’s cruise up the street, reached the cul-de-sac and turned around just as he had, glided past the trespass house just as a young woman stepped out the front door.
She was ready for her own run, in leopard-spot leggings, a black jersey top, a pink sun visor, and pink-trimmed Nikes. Long dark hair was tied in a ponytail. A pedometer was strapped to one ankle.
She saw me and tensed and looked back at her front door, as if considering escape.
Edgy. Understandable.
I lowered my driver’s window and smiled and showed her my long-expired, utterly irrelevant LAPD consultant badge. Doing that probably doesn’t rise to the level of impersonating an officer but it’s sketchy at best. Especially when I position my hand so it covers my name and title and leads the viewer’s eye to the official-looking departmental seal.
The woman looked where she was supposed to but didn’t comment. Early thirties, delicately built, pretty in a waifish way. She glanced back, again.
I said, “Sorry to alarm you but we’re here to follow up on your trespass case.” Nothing like the plural to beef up one’s status.
Her hand flew to her mouth. “She’s out again? You think she might come back?”
Tight, hoarse voice. I said, “Absolutely not, you have nothing to worry about.” I got out of the car, pocketed the badge.
She folded her arms across her chest. “How can you be sure?”
“She’s deceased.”
“Oh. How?”
“Accident.”
“That’s terrible. She freaked me out but I’d never wish that upon anyone. You came to let me know, Officer?”
“Actually, I’m not a detective, I’m a psychologist.”
Her nose wrinkled. Her arms remained in place. “I don’t understand.”
“In certain cases, we do psychological autopsies. Trying to gather as much information about a death, so we can compile a database and hopefully help other people with similar problems.”
Technically true; I’d advised the crypt on several postmortems. But never at Bill Bernstein’s behest; he had the psychological sensitivity of a bull-moose during rutting season.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay, sure, that’s a good thing. When I was in college I volunteered at a mental health center. I felt so bad for those people, it was really a downer.”
One arm dropped.
I said, “Severe mental illness can be really tough but that doesn’t make what happened to you any easier, Ms.” I smiled again. “Sorry, the file’s in the car.”
“Tina Anastasio.” Down went the second arm. “She’s dead. Sad but predictable I guess. Someone that…I’ve been thinking of her as a threat but I guess she was pretty pathetic. Still, you’re right, it was scary. We just moved here from New York, I still don’t know what I’m—anyway, sorry to hear it turned out so bad for her. What happened?”
“She was committed for a couple of days then released to an outpatient residential facility. Unfortunately, she left there.”
“Figures,” she said. “I saw people in the Bronx, helpless, coming and going and never getting help.” She adjusted her pedometer. “I’d better get moving. If I wait too long the will to exercise will pass.”
“Tina, is there anything you want to add to what you told the police?”
“Like what?”
“Anything that would shed light on Ms. Chase’s mental status—for example, you described her as screaming and digging up dirt. Did she say anything?”
“That’s not in the report?” she said. “What she said?”
“No.”
“Wow. I gave the information to the cops. Figures, I never felt they were really listening to me. You bet, she said something. One word, louder and louder until she was shrieking it. ‘Mother.’ ”
—
Another guess confirmed. Another so-what.
This time I really did put it to rest, but for occasional gnawing thoughts about Ovid Chase. A few days later—ten days after the death of Zelda Chase—Milo phoned and said, “Got something, not earthshaking but if you’re not busy, how about lunch?”
It was just past ten a.m. I’d finished breakfast at eight-thirty.
Not earthshaking but he wanted a face-to-face.
I said, “Sure, name the place.”
“Yours.”
CHAPTER
23
He walked in toting his battered green not-even-close-to-leather attaché case and dressed for a day off in a gray golf shirt, brown poly slacks worn low to give his gut breathing room, and the eternal desert boots, this pair tan eroded to gray. A loose bit of sole flapped at one toe-end.
He saw me looking at it. “Hey, Rick says they’re a fashion statement, now.”
“Sole-ful, huh?”
He grumbled and loped to the kitchen and began the mandatory fridge-grope.
I said, “Off duty?”
“On duty but a slow day, no need to meet the public. Too damn many slow days recently.”
“Bored?”
“Near-comatose. The citizens of West L.A. are failing to fulfill their homicidal obligations.” He straightened, brushed hair off his forehead, turned toward me. “Rumors are circulating. Not enough crime, too many detectives, time to streamline.”
“You’re protected.”
“Only up to a point. They can’t dump me outright but they can bug me about early retirement. Or try to break down my already fragile psyche by shoving trivial stuff at me.”
“Assaults, robberies, burglaries.”
“If I wanted to fill out reports all day, I’d be working for the government.”
“As opposed to…”
“Continuing to serve a paramilitary organization that makes use of my exceptional people skills, heroic nature, and inductive talents to bring bad guys to justice.”
He bent and searched a lower shelf. “You guys are kinda sparse in the nourishment department…okay, here’s a start.”
—
Scrambling five eggs with slices of leftover steak and hastily shredded fried chicken, he tossed in onions, mushrooms, bell pepper, celery, and zucchini, topped it all off with spirited dashes of cayenne, garlic salt, and whipping cream.
Moments later he’d plated a shimmering yellow mound the size of a cat, tucked a paper towel under his chin, and sat down. “Where’s the pooch? I’m Pavlov’d to where I need to feed her first.”
