Cool Cache (11 page)

My chest felt crushed beneath all that heavy thinking. Maybe Venus was right. Maybe I
was
still vulnerable. I had to work on that before it became a problem.

Riley’s shoulders were hunched inward as she stood staring into nowhere. I grabbed a couple of bottles of wine from the box on the floor.

“Hey, Riley. What do you say? Let’s party.”

Chapter 12

By the time Riley Deegan and I returned to the Luv Bugs party, a crowd had gathered in the hallway outside the guest bathroom, listening to a conversation through the closed door. Unless
oh, baby
and
lower
were entomology terms, Emma and Noah were no longer talking about ant mandibles.

The Noah and Emma show was about as good as the party got. Even so, I stayed until the bitter end. After the last person had left, Riley gave me some financial data on Luv Bugs and retired to her sister’s spare bedroom for a good cry. I let myself out. On Sunday, I looked over the paperwork she’d given me, but the information was too sketchy to be of help. I’d have to start from scratch.

Aloneness has its merits, but by Monday morning, I was happy to be back at the office. The lobby was empty when I arrived, but I heard papers rustling in Charley’s office. I went to investigate and found him sorting through stacks of files on his desk.

“What’s up?” I said. “Where’s Eugene?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I thought he was with you.”

“No. Did he call to say he’d be late?”

“He’s probably tied up in traffic. How about you stop worrying about Eugene and help me find the Seabrook interview notes.”

Charley resumed pawing through the files on his desk. I walked to the drawer in the cabinet marked R-S-T, where I found the file. I pulled it out and handed it to him.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

He grabbed it out of my hand and studied the label. “Yeah, where did you find it?”

I started to tell him, but figured it was wasted breath.

“Find anything interesting on Friday?” I asked.

He sat at his desk and opened a Manila file folder marked HELEN TAGGART. “My buddy told me a road crew found Lupe’s cleaning bucket in some brush near the Ten Freeway. The police think Ortiz threw it out of the window of his car after he fled the scene, but it’s just speculation, because the rain destroyed any chance of lifting prints.”

“What did you find at the courthouse?”

“Lupe Ortiz’s criminal history came up clean. Nothing on Brad Taggart, which didn’t surprise me. He lives on the East Coast. I didn’t expect to find a record in California. I got a hit on Bob Rossi, though. He pleaded no contest to a domestic violence rap last January. He got probation and a one-way ticket to anger-management classes. I drove to the restaurant on Saturday to talk to him, but he wasn’t there. One of his employees told me the guy is volatile and he doesn’t like Helen Taggart. Guess what else I learned? His restaurant is serving Nectar’s chocolates.”

I sat in a chair and stared at Charley from across his desk. “I thought Helen said that deal fell through.”

“She did.”

“Then how did he get the chocolates?”

Charley leaned back and put his freckled hands behind his head. “Who knows? Maybe Rossi sent one of his employees to buy them.”

“He wouldn’t pay retail prices. That would cost too much.”

He picked up a yellow number 2 pencil on his desk and made a note in the file. “The employee told me Rossi was friendly with Lupe Ortiz. He brought her dinner most nights she was cleaning at Nectar.”

I remembered the container of garlic shrimp. It must have come from Rossi’s restaurant, which meant he’d been at Nectar the night Lupe was murdered. I was beginning to think Eugene might be right. Roberto wasn’t the only person who had the opportunity to kill Lupe Ortiz. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had a motive, either.

“What if Lupe was exchanging chocolates for garlic shrimp?” I said. “Rossi has a history of violence toward women. Maybe he killed her because the exchange rate wasn’t working for him anymore.”

“It’s an interesting theory, especially since the employee claimed Rossi left the restaurant Thursday night at six thirty and didn’t get back until eight thirty. What time did you get to Nectar?”

“About eight fifteen. Your snitch didn’t mention what kind of car Rossi drives, did he?”

“No, but I can find out.”

“You think Rossi is behind those crank calls Helen keeps getting?”

“That’s going to be hard to prove unless we tap her telephone line. I mentioned it to her, but she didn’t warm to the idea.”

“We have to do something. I can’t save Nectar if somebody keeps sabotaging my efforts.”

By ten o’clock, Eugene still hadn’t arrived at work. I called his cell phone number, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t pick up at home, either, and his answering machine wasn’t on. I walked into Charley’s office and sat in his guest chair.

“It’s not like Eugene to be late,” I said. “He always calls.”

Charley looked up from the papers he was reading. “His mom probably grounded him.”

“I know you’re joking, Charley, but I’m worried.”

“Look, Sinclair, I like Eugene, but the kid is high-strung. Give him some space and let him work out his issues with his mom. If you ask me, he needs to have a down-and-dirty talk with Nerine and make peace.”

“You mean like all those down-and-dirty talks you’ve had with your son?”

“Leave Dickhead out of this.”

Charley’s skepticism aside, I knew Eugene. Something was wrong.

“I’m driving to his apartment to check on him,” I said.

“It’s a waste of time, but suit yourself.”

Chapter 13

Eugene had recently moved to an apartment in Silver Lake, a quaint residential neighborhood just northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The lake isn’t a lake. It’s a reservoir that was built in 1907. It’s not silver, either. More like blue, at least on a sunny day. The name came from Herman Silver, a member of Los Angeles’ first Board of Water Commissioners. Renowned Los Angeles Modernist architects, like Neutra and Ain, from the 1920s and ’30s had designed many of the homes and apartment buildings in the area. Eugene lived in an apartment featuring connected stucco cubes that had been inspired by the early work by R. M. Schindler.

A woman in her mid-to-late sixties answered the door. Nerine Barstok was around five-three or so and thin like Eugene. She had a prominent nose, and lips that had once been full but were now diminished by the crevices of time. On her wedding-ring finger was a boulder-sized opal. Her close-cropped gray hair and the navy gabardine pantsuit and white turtleneck sweater ensemble made her look militaristic. The plastic grocery bags strapped to her feet made her look as if she was about to perform surgery in the produce aisle of Ralph’s supermarket.

Near the door to the kitchen was a carpet shampooer, the kind you rent at the grocery store. Paper towels had been rolled out on the floor, forming crisscrossed paths leading from the door to the living room to the kitchen and beyond.

I introduced myself and she invited me in.

“Please take off your shoes,” she said in a pleasant tone. “One never knows what kind of nasty things you’ve been stepping in.”

As instructed, I kicked off my shoes and left them by the door.

“Walk on the towels. The carpet may still be wet.”

I put one foot in front of the other along the narrow strip of towels. By the time I reached the couch, I felt as if I’d passed some kind of quicker-picker-upper field sobriety test.

Eugene had filled his cozy apartment with furniture bought at garage sales and flea markets. He’d chosen pieces with a retro feel, adding paint and repairs where needed. A beat-up wooden hutch had been converted into a bookcase. It had been painted blue at one time, but the paint had chipped off. He’d chosen to leave it that way, and somehow it looked just right. An afghan in shades of rust, blue, and gold was draped artistically over the back of the couch. Beneath each foot of the bamboo couch, the matching chairs, and the end table was a square of waxed paper forming a barrier between the wood and the wet carpet.

A comforter and pillows were piled on a chair in the corner of the room, along with a stack of papers. The apartment had only one bedroom. I assumed Eugene had been relegated to sleeping on the couch. Framed photographs of his two cats sat on a nearby table, but I saw no sign of Liza and Fergie.

I sat on the couch next to a pair of sensible navy pumps that were parked on a paper towel on the floor. The toes were perfectly aligned, as if they were sister battleships docked in port after months at sea.

“I wish I could offer you a drink,” Nerine said. “I can’t believe my son doesn’t have a properly stocked liquor cabinet. Not even a decent bottle of bourbon. I thought I taught him better than that.”

I couldn’t believe she was thinking about alcohol so early in the day. She must have had one of those clocks with every number marked five.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m not into booze in the morning.”

Nerine stared at me as if I was something growing in a Petri dish. “I’m not talking about booze, dear. I’m talking about Booker’s, the best bourbon money can buy.”

I decided against pushing her toward any kind of show-down. For all I knew, Nerine could be housing nuclear war-heads in that opal ring of hers.

“Is Eugene here?” I said.

She stood abruptly. “How about a macaroon? I brought them with me on the plane from Tallahassee. In a sealed container, of course.”

She didn’t wait for my response. She marched into the tiny kitchen, past a clock on the wall that Eugene called Big Ben. I heard the water running and the clatter of crockery. She returned shortly, carrying a paper doily and a plate filled with cookies shriveled from the interaction of coconut, cookie dough, and hermetically sealed plastic.

I craned my neck and looked down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Where did you say Eugene was?”

She set the doily on the coffee table and spent a few seconds centering the plate so it was equidistant from all edges.

“Running errands.”

“When do you expect him back?”

“Soon.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“A while.”

Her answers seemed deliberately evasive. She was hiding something from me. Maybe she and Eugene had argued and she locked him in the cat carrier.

“Where are Liza and Fergie?”

“Hiding. I think they know I don’t like cats. Neither does the colonel. In fact, we never allowed the children to have pets of any kind. We moved so often, it wasn’t worth the fuss.”

I leaned back into the cushions of the couch and crossed my legs, racking my brain for a way to circumvent the chitchat without appearing rude. I wasn’t there to foment war. I just wanted to find Eugene. Nerine stared at my legs and frowned. I followed her gaze to make sure my feet weren’t shedding germs on the cookies, but the distance seemed okay to me.

“You shouldn’t cross your legs like that,” she said. “You could get a deep vein thrombosis. It happens to people sitting on airplanes or cramped in a car all day. The blood clots up and you’re dead, just like that. Besides, ladies should cross at the ankles. Modesty before comfort, they say.”

“Mrs. Barstok—”

“How long have you known Eugene?”

I drummed my fingers on my thigh and counted to ten. “We’ve worked together for about five years. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”

She brushed at a wad of cat hair on her navy wool pants. “Perhaps he did, but it’s such a chore to remember all the details. So where are your people from?”

“Los Angeles. Look, I need to find—”

She flashed a smug smile. “My goodness, don’t you feel claustrophobic staying in one spot all of your life?” She didn’t wait for my reply. “The colonel and I have traveled extensively. It’s a broadening experience. Maybe one day you’ll have a chance to try it.”

“I went to France last summer,” I mumbled.

She paused to center the opal on her finger. “As the colonel always says, France would be wonderful if it weren’t for the French.”

No wonder Eugene suffered from low self-esteem. It must have been toxic growing up with this woman. Pookie had her faults, but she was merely unstructured and ill prepared. Nerine was a horse of a different color, as my grandma Felder always said. We all had to make the best of the cards we were dealt, but somehow Eugene’s hand seemed even unluckier than mine.

I made another attempt to ask about him, but Nerine spoke over my words, as if she hadn’t even heard them. “My son tells me you’re a successful businesswoman. I wanted to be a school teacher, myself.” She averted her gaze in a move that seemed pensive almost melancholy. “Not very imaginative, is it? Anyway, then the children came along, and the rest is history.”

“I’m sure you would have had a brilliant career,” I said, “but Eugene must have been worth the sacrifice.”

“Touché,” she said, acknowledging the implied criticism. “Yes. I suppose it worked out for all of us. He was a challenge, though. I’m just grateful he’s been able to keep a job. Personally, I never thought he was cut out for the sort of work he’s doing now. He never had that killer instinct.”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Being an administrative assistant for a business consultant didn’t exactly require hazardous-duty pay. Even his work for Charley was mainly secretarial.

“Eugene has excellent skills,” I said. “He can be anything he wants to be.”

“That’s very sweet of you, dear, but you know what they say. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.”

My irritation bubbled over. “Mrs. Barstok, Eugene didn’t show up for work today. That’s not like him. I need to know where he is.”

She seemed taken aback by my sharp tone. “Why don’t you ask that private detective he works for?”