Dream House (24 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-TWO

I
HALF WALKED, HALF RAN TO SECOND STREET, THEN TO
Martel, where I rounded the corner and continued down the block until I was almost in front of The Dungeon.

I was out of breath, more from excitement than exertion. I slowed my pace, but my heart was pumping double-time as I stepped onto a narrow, cracked concrete aisle between two rows of junglelike shrubs. Vines grabbed at me and caught my hair, and for a moment I flashed to the man-eating plants in
Little Shop of Horrors,
a film that had truly terrified me. I pulled my hair free and pushed the vines away and finally arrived at the weathered black front door. I held my hand over the bell, and hesitated.

I knew I was being silly. It was daylight. People were nearby, some of whom had eyed me with curiosity as I'd galloped down the block in my designer heels. I'm twenty-nine years old, I don't believe in witches, but I felt as though I were seven again, whispering with my friends about the bad guys inside the dark house.

I rang the bell.

Charlene Coulter. She was the woman I'd just seen in the window of the three-story house on Martel, the only three-story in the neighborhood. The last time I'd stood in front of the French windows in Linney's office, night had been falling and I hadn't seen anything. I hadn't been looking. I'd been concentrating on sucking in fresh air to dispel the smoke that had been choking me.

I rang the bell again. I knew she was there. She couldn't have disappeared.

She was the author of the flyers. I was certain of it. “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.” I'd looked that one up in my
Bartlett's.
It's from Psalms 102:7. She had seen something. She wanted to tell me about it, or why had she left the flyers?

“She steals little boys like me and turns them into bats!” said a young male voice.

I started and turned around too quickly, bending my right ankle in the process. Pain shot up my leg.

“You're being silly, Kevin,” a man said to a towheaded youngster perched on a bright green bike.

“It's true!”

“It's not true.” He turned to me and smiled. “Kids. She doesn't like people bothering her, though.”

I nodded. “I appreciate it. Thanks.”

He shrugged and walked on.

I rang the bell again and again. I don't know why, but I thought about poor, dead Oscar Linney, who had stood at the door to his dream house, ringing the bell, rapping on the door with his cane, begging his daughter to let him in.

Finally I gave up. I wrote my name and phone number on a piece of paper and slipped it under the black door.

According to the “Home” section in this morning's L.A.
Times,
Central Realty had numerous open houses this Sunday in Miracle Mile North. I'd jotted down the addresses before leaving for Linney's funeral. Now I drove to the nearest one, a two-story, red-tiled Spanish on Vista north of Beverly Boulevard.

The Realtor, a fortyish woman with blond hair and too-red lipstick, was in the dining room talking with a couple. I picked up a specs sheet, returned to the center hall, and walked up the stairs. A black couple was coming down the stairs. We exchanged smiles as we passed each other.

I love looking at houses, especially houses like this one that are well kept. I love taking in their character, imagining their secrets, exploring the nooks and crannies that make them special. I strolled through the rooms, sighed at the spacious closets, and walked down the stairs.

The Realtor was standing near the open front door with the first couple. “If you're interested, I'd make an offer. And I wouldn't wait. This is a beauty, and at the price, someone's going to grab it.”

The price, I'd seen from the prospectus, was $759,000.

The Realtor turned to me and treated me to a wide smile. “My name is Dawn. Did you look around? Can I answer any questions?”

The couple I'd passed on the stairs had reappeared. They stood a few feet away, waiting their turn.

“You listed a two-story on Fuller between First and Second,” I said. “I didn't see the sign when I drove by.”

Dawn was immediately subdued. “There was a terrible fire, and someone died.” Then, without a beat, “This house has an
almost identical floor plan and several hundred more square feet. Did you see the bonus room upstairs?”

“It's lovely. Do you know whether that house will be for sale again?”

“Actually, the owner has taken it off the market permanently. He's rebuilding.”

“I understand that it was taken off the market once before. When did it go on the market the second time?”

She looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“I don't know. I'd have to check at the office.”

“It was the middle of June,” said the woman who was waiting with her husband.

I turned to her.

“Jim and I loved that house,” she told me. “We made an offer the first time it was on the market, but someone outbid us. Then that deal fell through, and we heard the house wasn't for sale. But I kept checking. When I heard it was available again, we were ready to buy.”

“Why didn't you?”

She exchanged a glance with her husband. “He talked us out of it.”

I frowned. “The owner?”

“The Realtor. Bolt. He told us the owner's wife was kidnapped, maybe killed. He said they found her blood in the house.”

“That's the law,” Dawn said. “We're obligated to reveal information about any crime that has taken place on the property.”

The woman nodded. “We told him we didn't care. We figured that would lower the price. He kept telling us about other properties, how they were better for our needs. The fact that he lives next door had nothing to do with it, right?”

“Are you saying Mr. Bolt didn't want you to buy the house?” Dawn said. “Why would he do that?”

The black woman smiled. “Oh, I can't imagine.” She turned to her husband. “Can you, Jim?”

Zack was preparing for a speech he had to deliver this evening at a bar mitzvah reception, so I was on my own. I spent the rest of the afternoon straightening up my apartment and doing laundry. Then I visited Gitty and Judah and played with Yechiel, who is almost a year old and is starting to walk and talk.

I was too lazy to cook and didn't feel like eating out alone, though I've done it many times and usually don't mind. I was feeling a little blue because of the day. Linney's funeral in the morning, my visit to the Fuller house. Tim Bolt turning out to be a bigot.

I went to my parents'. Noah was out with his girlfriend, and Joey with his. Liora was on a date with a young man from Baltimore. So it was just the three of us, and it was nice. We ate leftovers and watched
The Sopranos.
There was one explicit scene where Tony was really going at it with one of his girlfriends. I was a little embarrassed having my dad in the room, and I think he was embarrassed, too. Fathers and daughters . . .

Then I went home. Isaac popped out of his door to tell me he'd been on the lookout and everything was “hunky-dory.” I checked the apartment anyway, my heart beating a little faster as I turned on the lights in every room and made sure nothing was out of place.

There were two messages on my answering machine. Zack had phoned from the bar mitzvah, “Just to say hi,” and asked me to call him back on his cell. I knew he wanted to make sure I was all right, and though I pride myself on being indepen-dent, I have to say I liked being worried about. The second message was from a woman who didn't identify herself, but didn't need to:

“Tomorrow night, nine o'clock. Be careful. The night has a thousand eyes.”

Whose eyes were watching me?

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-THREE

Monday, November 17. 10:02
A.M
. 400 block of Holt Avenue. A woman received a phone call from a neighbor who threatened to blow up her house if she continued to run her air conditioner after 11:30
P.M
. The suspect is described as a 30-year-old woman standing 5 feet 6 inches tall. (Wilshire)

T
HE HOUSEKEEPER, A SHORT, THIN WOMAN WITH
coal-black eyes and a long black braid with glints of indigo and strands of silver, opened the door.

“Mr. Reston says to me you are coming at twelve,” she told me in a heavy Spanish accent when I was in the entry hall. “You want to see
el profesor's
room, yes?”

Reston had suggested that I come at noon, when he would meet me. The housekeeper's English wasn't great, he'd told me. I'd decided to come early.

“You're Louisa, right?” I smiled. “I'm Molly. Mr. Reston said it would be okay for me to talk to you about Professor Linney and his daughter.”

“¡La pobrecita!”
The woman sighed.
“¿Ella esta muerta, verdad?”

I nodded. That much I understood: The poor woman. She is dead, true? Margaret's portrait, which I could see from where we were standing, seemed to belie that fact. I was taken again by the restless energy the artist had captured, the suggestion that Maggie wanted to leap off the mantel.

Louisa took me into the kitchen. We sat at the breakfast room table and I asked her what she remembered about the last days of Linney's life.

“No very much. He is no very different than always. Very sad, very angry. I no blame him. I feel sorry for him, you know?” She clucked.

“You knew him a long time?
¿Mucho tiempo?
”

She nodded. “
Sí.
I am with the family twenty years, from when I am young girl. Very sad when Mrs. Roberta died. She is very nice lady.”

“You said Professor Linney was angry. Was he angry with anyone in particular?
¿Específico?
” I added, when Louisa seemed perplexed.

Her eyes slid sideways, toward the open doorway. “No, no one.”

I'd assumed she wouldn't feel comfortable tattling on the man who paid her wages, but I had to try. “By the way, who was taking care of the old house, on Fuller?”

“Angelita, the daughter of my sister. She is going there every week before the
fuego.
The fire. But no more. Now she is looking for another job.” Louisa sighed.

I wasn't sure whether she was sighing about the torched house or the fact that her niece was out of a job. Maybe both. “What about after the fire?”

Louisa shook her head. “Mr. Reston, he tells her there is no need.”

I asked her about the day before Margaret disappeared.

“She is out of the house much of the day. When she comes back she is
muy triste.
Very sad. She is crying.”

“Not nervous?
Nerviosa?
”

Louisa hesitated.
“Enojada.”
Angry.

“¿Enojada?”
I leaned toward her. “Why was she angry, Louisa? With whom?
¿Con quién?
”

“No sé.”
Louisa shrugged. “She goes into her room, and she is yelling. ‘If you do not put it back by tomorrow, I am telling the
policía.
I do not care what you say.'”

I frowned. “Put
what
back?”

“
No sé.
She does not come out of her room.” Louisa picked up a napkin and rubbed at an invisible spot on the table. “The
policía
ask me questions about
el profesor.
I do not tell them. They will think wrong things. But now he is dead, so it does not matter.”

“What things?”

“He is yelling at Margarita to come out of her room. He is hitting the door.” Louisa slammed the table hard with her palm several times. “He heard the phone call, he will not go to
Goldavista.”

So
Linney
had heard Ochs's message. “Then what happened?”

“Then Margarita comes out of her room and says I can go home early. And this is the last time I see her.” The housekeeper sighed deeply. “I think all this time
el profesor
's heart is heavy because he is yelling at her this last day that she is living.” She pressed her hand against her breast. “So many times he is crying. ‘Margarita, I'm sorry. Margarita, don't hate me.'”

“But you didn't tell this to the police,” I said.

“For what?
El profesor
is yelling all the time. He yells, and then he is sorry. They will not understand. A few weeks ago, before
el profesor
died, I tell
Señor
Reston. He says to me I am right not to tell.”

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FOUR

A
SECOND SEARCH OF LINNEY'S ROOM REVEALED
LITTLE
new. If there had been any bank statements from the home equity line of credit, they were no longer there. I did find statements for his checking account (he had a balance of $513.47) and a savings account with a little over $13,000. I jotted down the name and phone number of the bank and the account number.

The medicine cabinet was crammed with the usual assortment of vitamins, antacids, analgesics, cold medications, various ointments. There were vials of medications, including Mirapex. From my discussion with Elbogen, I knew that was for Parkinson's.

Louisa had told me she would be upstairs if I needed her. Leaving Linney's room, I heard the droning of a vacuum, a sound that grew louder as I neared the center staircase.

Reston's study was on the other side of the hall, to my right. On the phone this morning, when I'd told him I wanted to look through Linney's things again, he'd repeated what he'd said the other day: “Look anywhere you want.” I doubted that his study or papers were included in that
anywhere,
and though technically he'd given me carte blanche, I had qualms about nosing through his property.

Yes or no.

I could wait and hope that the lab techs would decipher the original entry in Margaret's planner, and that Porter or Hernandez would share that information with me.

But I was here, and Reston wasn't.

The bookshelves were still empty. The rosewood desk, bare with the exception of a brass reading lamp, a combination phone and answering machine, and a black leather desk set, exuded the delicious fragrance of new wood. I sat on the edge of the studded leather chair, and with my ears straining for the reassuring hum of the vacuum, I opened the top right-hand drawer.

Mostly bills. Land phone, cell phone, utilities, cable company, Internet access, credit cards. I didn't examine any of them, or the itemized bill from the decorator. I was trying to adhere to a fine line between curiosity and research. I did check Reston's bank statement. He had $12,000 in his checking account, almost $70,000 in savings. But if he was hurting because of the HARP properties, $70,000 wouldn't cover many months of the mortgage on the Muirfield house.

I also found a statement from Linney's bank for his line of credit. The balance due was $456,821. A hefty debt. I looked at it again to make certain I hadn't missed a decimal point. The maximum line of credit, Mindy had told me, is usually 80 percent of the property's assessed value. Assuming that the Fuller house, before the fire, had been valued at around $650,000 to $700,000, the amount borrowed against it was close to the limit allowed.

The bottom drawer was a file cabinet. Many of the folders contained material related to Reston's carpet and flooring business. I thumbed through some of the other folders and found documents dealing with various properties that Reston owned, mostly in Los Angeles, some outside the state. I didn't find anything related to Skoll Investments.

A folder labeled
INSURANCE
contained an itemized list of all the jewelry that had been stolen the night Margaret had disappeared. There were also several letters from Reston, the most recent dated last Thursday, inquiring about the status of his claim.

I was reading the letter when the ringing of the phone startled me. After three rings the answering machine picked up, and I heard Reston's brief message. For a second I felt as though he were in the room, watching me snoop though his private papers.

The vacuum was still going. I checked my watch. Eleven-ten. Almost an hour before Reston was due home.

In a folder labeled
FULLER HOUSE
I found a certified copy of a Grant Deed, dated May 6 of this year, transferring ownership of the property on Fuller from Oscar Linney to Margaret Linney Reston. According to another notarized document, Linney had granted Margaret power of attorney on the same date. A busy day, apparently.

I wondered when Hank and Margaret had executed their reciprocal powers of attorney. I'd phoned Central Realty this morning, learned the name of the title company that had insured the property, and spoken to a title officer who promised he'd get back to me as soon as possible.

The home insurance policy was in the folder, too. Attached to the front was a page with handwritten figures and the words
Cash out? Approx. $500 G.

I also found Linney's checkbook for his line of credit. There were numerous checks written in the past two months, all made out to HR Floor Covering. I did a mental calculation and came up with approximately $390,000. There were quite a few checks written before Margaret's disappearance. Two, totaling $43,400, were made out to Skoll Investment. Several were made out to cash. I added those up. Another $22,000.

No wonder Reston had changed
HELC
into
HELP.
I wondered how he planned to explain all this to Hernandez and Porter, who were certain to examine all of Linney's finances now that they viewed his death as a homicide. Of course, Reston could claim that the money was a loan, but if the police talked to Linney's friends, they'd learn what I had: that the old man would never have loaned his son-in-law a nickel, let alone over a third of a million dollars.

Well, that was Reston's problem, not mine.

I still didn't know what Margaret had written instead of
Check out Sub-Zero.
I found her burgundy leather planner in the bottom left-hand drawer, under a stack of folders. I paged backwards and there, on the left-hand side, was the entry I'd read on my photocopy:
Check out Sub-Zero.
The page for June 13–14 was gone. Either Reston was telling the truth and Maggie had ripped it out, or he had.

I'd brought a magnifying glass. I held it over the entry and moved it slowly left to right. There had definitely been an erasure. The good news, for me, was that Margaret had written with a heavy hand, and the author of the newer entry hadn't. So I could discern faint indentations of what could be letters. The bad news was that the indentations were covered by the newly penciled letters, light though they were.

I moved the lens back to the beginning of the entry and held it there. I wasn't sure, but it seemed to me that beneath the
Ch
was the indentation of part of what could be a capital letter
M.
Next to that was something that looked like a slash. I couldn't identify what was next to the slash, but I made out a capital
P
at the end of the line.

Wonderful.
M
and a slash and a
P.
I needed Vanna White and a few vowels.

The vacuum stopped, and so, for a second, did my heart. Then my heart pounded against my chest. I waited, prepared to shut the planner and return it to the drawer. The droning started again, and I let out my breath.

I looked at the left side of the previous page and found the line that corresponded to
Check out Sub-Zero.
It was blank. Using a pencil from my purse, I rubbed the edge lightly over the blank line, hoping to bring into white relief the indentations made by Margaret's writing. I peered at the line through my magnifying lens.

Nothing but gray striations.

I erased my pencil markings, brushed the residue into my purse, and checked my watch. Eleven-fifty. Ten more minutes before Reston came home, but what was the point? I was about to close the planner when I looked at the facing page and noticed the impressions of Margaret's heavy script. I switched on the desk lamp. Raising the page, I let the light reflect off of it. Then, putting my finger on
Check out Sub-Zero,
I found the corresponding impressions.

I felt a surge of excitement. The letters were there, sharp and legible. The problem was that they were backwards.

I moved my eyes from right to left, as though I were reading Hebrew. The first letter was definitely an
M.
Then a slash. Then a capital
D.
Then, an
R.
Then—

The vacuum stopped. I waited a second, but this time the droning didn't resume, which was a good thing, because if it had, I wouldn't have heard the thunk of the front door being shut.

I froze.

“Louisa?” Reston's voice boomed in the high-ceilinged entry. “There's a car in the driveway. Is Miss Blume here?”

“
La señora
is in
el profesor's
room,
Señor
Reston.”

I held my breath until I heard his footsteps on the marble, heading to the right. Away from the study.

I had less than a minute. I looked at the planner and almost cried in frustration. I'd lost my place. My eyes flicked over the
M,
the slash, the
D,
the
R.
The next letter was
O,
then
P, DROP.
There was a space. Then
O, F, F, OFF.
Drop off.

“Molly? Miss Blume.”

My hands were shaking and clammy. I made out the next word:
I, N, F, O
. Info.

Information about what?

“Louisa, she's not there,” Reston called, back in the entry. “Do you know where she is?”

R, E.
Re.

He was about fifty feet away. My stomach was in knots. Common sense told me to stop, but there was one more word. The first letter was
H.
Then
A, R, P.

H, A, R, P.
HARP. Of course.

M/Drop off info re HARP.

I slipped the planner back into the drawer, shut off the light, and was standing at the French windows looking out on the pool when Reston entered the study.