Evidence (13 page)

“No
way I
tussle,”
said Bryczinski. “Why would I
tussle?
He’s an old
fart
,
this is my
turf
.”

Milo
placed a finger near Bryczinski’s lips. “Hold on, Doyle.”

“Can
they at least let go of me? My arms hurt and I need to get off the leg.”

Milo
glanced past Bryczinski, at something big and green-handled, lying just outside
the fence. “Bolt cutters, Doyle?”

“Just
in case.”

“In
case of what?”

“An
emergency.”

“I
put that chain there, Doyle.”

“I
wasn’t going to cut nothing. It was just in case I had to go in.”

“For what?”

“What
I said, an emergency.”

“Such
as?”

“I
dunno, another crime? A fire?”

“Why
would there be another crime or a fire, Doyle?”

“There
wouldn’t, I’m just saying.”

“Saying
what?”

“I
like to be prepared.”

“If I
search your car, Doyle, am I going to find anything criminally useful—or
flammable?”

“No
way.”

“Do I
have permission to search your car?”

Hesitation.

“Doyle?”

“Sure,
go ahead.”

“Let
go of him, guys, so he can give me his car key.”

Milo
rummaged in the Taurus, came back. “Nothing iffy, Doyle, but I’m gonna have
these officers bring you to my office so we can chat some more.”

“I
didn’t do
nothing
, Lieutenant. I can’t leave, I’m on the job—”

“The
job’s temporarily suspended, Doyle.”

“What
about my car? I leave it there, I’ll get a ticket.”

“I’ll
put a sticker on the windshield.”

Bryczinski’s
eyes watered. “If I don’t work, company’ll can my ass.”

“We’ll
talk at the station, Doyle, everything works out, you’re back here today. But
don’t mess with neighbors.”

“He
ain’t a neighbor, he’s a maniac. Claims he owns the place and tried to hit me
upside the head when I told him to buzz off.”

“Charles
Ellston
Rutger.”

The
man cleared his throat for the third time, smoothed back thin white hair, cast
a derisive look.

His
houndstooth sport coat was high-grade cashmere with working
leather buttons, suede elbow patches, and a cut that said
tailor-made, but the lapels were several decades too wide. Knife-pressed cream
slacks broke perfectly over spit-shined oxblood loafers. His shirt was
once-blue pinpoint oxford faded to lavender-gray and frayed along the rim of
the collar. A gold gizmo shaped like a safety pin held the collar in place,
elevating the Windsor knot of a pine-green foulard patterned with bugles and
foxhounds. More fabric erosion fuzzed the tie. Same for a canary-yellow pocket
square.

Charles
Rutger’s driver’s license made him sixty-six. Skin as cracked and dry and
blotched as the seats of a convertible left open to the elements would have
made me guess older. He’d lied about his height and weight, adding an inch or
two, subtracting the fifteen pounds that strained the buttons of the sport
coat. The white hair, slicked back, waxy and furrowed by comb marks, was topped
by a yellowish sheen. Heavy eyelids were specked with tiny wens.

South
Pasadena address, not the fashionable part of that city, an apartment unit. The
single vehicle registered in his name was a fifteen-year-old maroon Lincoln
Town Car. The very same sedan parked haphazardly near the fence.

“Bit
of a drive from South Pasadena, Mr. Rutger.”

“This
is my homestead, I can get here in my sleep.” Plummy voice, vaguely
mid-Atlantic, explicitly disapproving.

“You
say you own this property?”

“I
don’t say it, basic
decency
says it. When I
heard about what happened, I rushed right over.”

“How’d
you find out?”

“The
news. Of course.” Charles
Ellston
Rutger tugged his lapels straight.

“The
registered owner is a company named DSD.”

“Towelheads,”
said Rutger. “And I won’t shrink from saying so. They bomb us and then we
kowtow? Utter rubbish.”

“Arabs,”
said Milo.

“Who
else? Oil money, otherwise known as blood money, came into play, oh did it! In
my day, they’d have been told what
for
.”

“Not allowed to buy property?”

“Covenants
we called them, and a good thing they were.” Turning back toward the framework.
“Monstrosity
. This was a lovely neighborhood, put Beverly Hills and
those
people to shame.”

“Those
people being…”

“Beverly
Hills people. Hollywood. Now it’s
them
with their oil.”

“Can
you give us names of people associated with DS—”

“I
can’t give you something I never knew,” said Rutger. “The entire transaction
was manipulated by slick Jew lawyers. You’d think they’d avoid each other like
the plague. Jews and towelheads. But when it comes to money, there’s common
ground.”

“Sir,”
said Milo, “we’re investigating a murder, so if there’s something you can—”

“I
know
what you’re investigating, I just told you I heard it on the news.”

“And
rushed right over.”

“Absolutely.”

“Why,
Mr. Rutger?”

“Why?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Why
not? Last I heard this was still a free country.”

“Mr.
Rutger, this is a serious case and I don’t have time—”

“Neither
do I, Officer. Why did I rush over? Because I’ve been
violated
. Again.”

“Again?”

“This
place was mine, Officer.
They
took it from me. And now blood has
spilled. Barbarians.”

“Tell
me how they took it from you, sir.”

“Tell?”
said Rutger. “I could write you a book. In fact, I’ve been thinking about doing
just that. ‘Pillage of the Innocent.’ It could be a bestseller, given the way
people feel about
them.”

“How
about a summary, Mr. Rutger?”

“Why
would you want that?”

“So I
can understand—”

“Fine, fine, here’s your summary: a tragedy that
symbolizes everything vulgar this country has become. When I was a boy, a
beautifully proportioned
home
sat here. A lovely Georgian Revival
designed by Paul Williams. Not that you’d know who that is—”

“Top
architect in the forties and fifties,” said Milo. “Black, so he couldn’t live
in most of the neighborhoods where he worked.”

Rutger
smoothed his tie. “Be that as it may, he knew how to design a home. My father
paid for it with honest work, not by manipulating currency or money-changing or
scheming.”

“What
business was your father in?”

“Honest
business. My sister and I grew up in bucolic splendor. Not that she cares… so
what do
they
do? Demolish our lineage and put up
that.”
His chin
quivered. “Visigoths.”

“You
were opposed to selling DSD the property but your sister disagreed?”

Rutger
glared. “Haven’t you been listening? They
stole
it from under me.”

“How?”

No
answer.

“Sir?”

“No
need to get into any of this, Officer.”

“I’d
like to anyway.”

“Bully
for you, but I do not wish to discuss personal matters.”

“Homicide
makes everything public, Mr. Rutger.”

“That
does not concern me.” More chin calisthenics. Rutger’s eyes filled with tears.
Ripping the pocket square loose, he dabbed. “Blasted dust.”

I
said, “You came here because you felt your family’s memory was being sullied
all over again.”

Rutger
stared at me. “You’re Jewish, aren’t you? My father used to play golf with
Rabbi Magnin. Now, there was a shrewd man, used family money to build that
temple of his.
Big
money, from San Francisco. His brothers were
haberdashers, knew how to turn a nice profit.”

Milo said, “Are you making an actual claim of
ownership to this property, Mr. Rutger?”

“I
would if I could find a knight errant willing to do battle.”

“A
lawyer to take your case.”

“Cowards,”
said Rutger.

“Okay,
sir, you need to avoid any more confrontations—hold on, let me finish. Yes,
it’s a free country but freedom means responsibility. You’re an educated man,
you know that.”

Rutger
humphed. “Last I heard, this was still a free country.”

“Sir,
this is a crime scene. No unauthorized entry will be tolerated.”

“That’s
what
he
said—that fool in a uniform. He was rude and uncouth and I was
compelled to take action.” Holding up two fists. He refolded the handkerchief,
repeated until he’d produced a perfect dimple. “I’m leaving now, Officer, but I
will not accept any arbitrary pronouncements banning me from my—”

“I
have no objection to your driving by, Mr. Rutger. But please don’t stop and try
to enter for any reason. And if you do observe something out of the ordinary,
call me. Here’s my number.”

Rutger
regarded the business card as if it were tainted.

“Sir?”
said Milo.

“Just
like that?” Rutger snapped his fingers. “You command and I obey?”

“Mr.
Rutger, I’m defining limits to avoid future misunderstanding. You may drive by
to your heart’s content but do not try to enter the property.”

Charles
Ellston Rutger drew himself up. Jacket buttons battled his belly. “At this
time, I see no reason to return.”

“Good
choice, sir.”

“This
is America. I don’t need you to define my choices.”

Rutger’s
Town Car rumbled off, squeaking on bad bearings and belching exhaust.

Milo
exhaled. “Well, that was different.”

He
phoned in Rutger’s name. Several moving violations, nothing criminal. “Crazy
old coot but for all his attachment to this heap, I don’t see him having the
stamina to climb those stairs with a weapon, dominate, and double-murder.”

“Agreed,”
I said. “And despite his age, he doesn’t sound like our tipster.”

We
drove back to the station where he let Doyle Bryczinski simmer in an empty
interview room and searched the county assessor for the Borodi property’s
previous owners.

Only
one: the Lanyard A. Rutger Family Trust, established twenty years previously.
The trust had sold the place fourteen years later, the transaction handled by
Laurence Rifkin, Esq., of Rifkin, Forward, and Levitsky, Beverly Hills. Their
website pegged them as tax and estate lawyers.

Milo
said, “Start at the top,” phoned and asked for Rifkin. A mellow
baritone came on the line surprisingly quickly. “Larry
Rifkin here. Police? What’s going on?”

Milo
summed up.

Rifkin
chuckled. “I’m not laughing about murder. I’m laughing at theater of the
absurd. Good old Charlie.”

“You’ve
got a history with him?”

“I
can’t believe he’s still claiming he was defrauded. He was the one who pushed
the sale in the first place, Lieutenant. On top of being crazy, he must be
going senile.”

“So
any claim of fraud is groundless.”

“Groundless?
It’s insane. Here’s what it boils down to: Lanyard, their father—Charlie’s and
Leona’s, that’s Charlie’s sister—made some money in manufacturing and
investments but by the time he’d died, he’d lost quite a bit in the market and
once debts were settled there wasn’t much estate left. You know the rich,
my
treasures,
your
junk? Paintings Charlie thought were priceless turned
out to be piddling, same for a bunch of supposedly rare books that weren’t
first editions. The only sizable asset was residential real estate: three
houses, worth maybe five mil at the time. The place on Borodi was the
biggest-ticket item. Lan built it back in the forties, got Paul Williams to
design, the place was gorgeous. There’s also a chalet-type weekend place with a
dock on Lake Arrowhead, and a three-acre spread in Palm Springs. Lan died ten
years ago, made it to ninety-one, but Barbara—his wife—died when she was much
younger, so everything went to the kids. Leona’s a doctor, oncologist, lovely
lady. Lan was a perceptive man and named her the executor. Technically, that
was logical but it accomplished the obvious.”

“Family
strife.”

“Charlie
strife. We—my dad was still alive, headed the firm—tried to talk Lan out of
designating Leona, suggested we should execute. Or Lan could find someone at
one of his banks. He wouldn’t hear of it.”