Evidence (6 page)

“I
need to talk to her about a case.”

“A
case? What case?”

“Someone
she worked with was murdered.”

“Who?”

“Desmond
Backer.”

“Don’t
know him.”

“Ma’am—”

“I’m
her mother. She’s out.”

“Could
you please tell me where?”

“How
do I know you’re not some maniac?”

“I’ll
give you my number at the police station and you can verify.”

“How
do I know you’re not giving me some phony number?”

“Feel
free to look it up. West L.A. Division, on Butler—”

“I
should do all the work?”

“Ma’am,”
said Milo, “I appreciate your caution but I need to talk to Bettina.”

Silence.

“Mrs.
Sanfelice—”

“She
went to T.G.I. Friday’s.”

“Which
one?”

“All
the way in Woodland Hills, I don’t know the address. She likes the burgers,
you’d never catch me wasting gas for that.”

“What
was she wearing?”

“How
would I know?”

“She
doesn’t live with you?”

“She
sure does, ’cause she still don’t have no job. That don’t mean I pay attention
to her clothes.”

Click.

He
phoned Detective Moe Reed, asked for DMV statistics on the intern.

The
young cop said, “I was just about to call you, Loo. Prints on Backer and the
female vic got run through AFIS but unfortunately nothing kicked back …”

“I
already knew that.”

“You
did?”

“It’s
been that kind of day.” He spelled Sanfelice’s name.

Seconds
later Reed said, “Sanfelice, Bettina Morgana, thirty years
old,
five five, hundred and ten, brown, brown, wears corrective lenses, no wants or
warrants. Here’s the address.”

Living
at Mom’s when she’d had her license renewed three years ago.

“Anything
else, Loo?”

“I’ll
let you know.”

Milo
hung up. “I hear intern, I figure a college kid. She’s way past that,
unemployed, stuck with that loving maternal entity. Like you said, emotional
vulnerability. Ol’ Des had a helluva nose.”

The
101 freeway was starting to clog up so I took Ventura Boulevard to Woodland
Hills. The T.G.I. Friday’s was like any other, which is the point.

Chain
restaurants are easy targets of ridicule for expense-account gourmets, documentary
filmmakers living off grant money, and trust-fund babies. For folks saddled
with budgets and faced with a world that seems increasingly unpredictable,
they’re temples of comfort. Milo and I had grown up in the Midwest and we’d
both flipped burgers in high school. The smell of the grill still evokes all
sorts of memories. How I react depends on what else is going on in my life.

Today,
the aroma was pretty good.

Milo
inhaled deeply. “Home sweet bacon.”

The
interior was vast, chocked with corporate oak, stenciled mirrors,
not-even-close-to-Tiffany lamps, red-shirted servers mostly hanging around
because of the three p.m. off-hour.

A bar
ample enough to intoxicate half the Valley ran the length of the room. The
layout made it easy to spot every customer: a scatter of bleary-eyed truckers
with no idea what time it was, a mom and a grandmom teaming up to handle a
whining kid in a booster chair, two young women in a booth midway down, sipping
tall pink drinks and picking at a plate of fries.

A kid
in a red shirt said, “Two for lunch?”

“We’re
joining friends.”

Both women were pale, thin, wore drab, short-sleeved
tops, jeans, and careless ponytails. Other than platinum hair on one, they each
matched Bettina Sanfelice’s stats.

Milo
said, “The blonde’s wearing glasses, so I’m betting that’s her. Now all I need
to do is separate her from her friend and get her to blab about her sex life.
Any suggestions as to the proper approach?”

“There
is none,” I said.

“Your
optimism is a blessing.”

Neither
woman noticed until we got within three feet, then both looked up. Milo smiled
at the blonde. “Bettina Sanfelice?”

The
brown-haired woman said, “That’s me,” in a tiny, tentative voice. Small-boned
but full-faced, she had close-set mocha eyes and puffy cheeks and looked like a
child who’d just been punished. The white-sauce-slicked fry she’d been reaching
for dropped back onto her plate. Not a potato—something pale green and
breaded—deep-fried string bean?

Milo
bent to make himself smaller, showed his card rather than the badge, recited
his title as if it were no big deal.

Bettina
Sanfelice was too stricken to speak, but the blonde said, “Police?” as if he
were joking. She had good features but grainy skin with some active blemish,
dark circles under her eyes that heavy makeup failed to mask.

Milo
kept his focus on Bettina Sanfelice. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but
we’re investigating the death of someone you worked with.”

Sanfelice’s
mouth dropped open. Her hand shot forward, rocked her drink. It would’ve
spilled if I hadn’t caught it. “Death?”

“By
homicide, I’m afraid.”

Sanfelice
gasped. “Who?”

Milo
said, “A man named Desmond—”

Before
Backer’s surname had been fully pronounced both women shouted, “Des!”

The
kid in the red shirt looked over. A hard look from Milo caused him to veer
toward the bar.

The bespectacled blonde said, “I have just got totally
nauseous.”

Bettina
Sanfelice said, “Des? Omigod.”

The
blonde removed her glasses. “I need a bathroom.” She slid out of the booth.

“You
also knew Des, ma’am?”

“Same
as Tina did.” The blonde trotted toward the restrooms, moving clumsily in
ultratight jeans and ratty sneakers.

The
kid in the red shirt dared to come over. “Everything okay?”

Milo
expanded like a balloon. “Everything’s grand, just go about your business.”

Now
was the time for the badge. Gawking, the kid turned heel.

Milo
said, “Your friend’s pretty upset, Bettina.”

“Sheryl’s
got a iffy stomach.”

“That’s
Sheryl Passant?”

Nod.
“Omigod. Who hurt Des?”

“That’s
what we’re trying to find out. Mind if we join you?”

“Um
…” Not budging.

Milo
smiled. “Thanks for the compliment, but I need a little more room than that,
Bettina.”

“Oh…
sorry.” Sanfelice scooted over and he wedged beside her. Milo’s presence turned
her tiny. An abused child.

I
settled across from them.

Milo
pointed at the pink drink. “I know it’s a shock, feel free.”

“Oh …
no, thanks.” But she grabbed the glass with both hands, took a long, noisy sip.

“Frozen
strawberry margarita?” said Milo.

“Frozen
straw-tini … Des is really dead? Omigod, that’s so … I can’t believe it!”

“Tina,
anything you can tell us about Des would be really helpful. You and Sheryl both
worked with him, right?”

“Uh-huh.
At GHC—that’s a architectural firm. Sheryl got me the job.”

“You
and Sheryl are old friends.”

“From
junior high. We tried out for the army but we changed our
mind
because of Eye-rack. Instead, we enrolled in JC but we didn’t like it, so we
went to ITT to learn computers but we didn’t like that so we switched to
business technology at Briar Secretarial. Sheryl got a job right away, she can
type fast, but I’m slower so I switched to computer graphics. My dream is to
design furniture and draperies but there’s nothing right now so when Sheryl got
the job at GHC, she told me they needed a intern, maybe I could get to do
design.”

“Did
you?”

“Uh-uh,
I mostly ran errands, answered the phone when Sheryl was tied up. Which didn’t
happen too much. There really wasn’t nothing to do.”

“Was
Des working at GHC when you and Sheryl got hired?”

“No,
he came later. Like a week later. We said, ‘Finally, a guy.’” Blushing.

“Mr.
Cohen’s a guy.”

“He’s
old.”

“How
old?”

“Like
sixty. He’s like a grandpa.”

A
voice to our left said, “He
is
a grandpa, used to bring his rug-rat
grandkids in and would go off all day with them.”

Sheryl
Passant looked down on us, oracle on the mount.

I got
up to let her in. No more ponytail; her blond hair was long and loose and
streaming and her glasses were gone.

She
slid in. “Why were you talking about Mr. Cohen?”

Bettina
Sanfelice said, “We’re talking about Des, Sher. To find out who killed him.”

“Us?
What can
we
tell them?”

Milo
said, “For starts, what kind of guy Des was, Sheryl. Did he have enemies, who’d
want to hurt him?”

Passant
shifted closer. Her thigh pressed against mine. I scooted an inch away. She
frowned. Flipped her hair. “Des had no enemies.”

“None
at all?”

“Des
was really mellow, I can’t see anyone hating him. Not even Helga the Nazi.”

“Helga the Gestapo Girl,” said Sanfelice, giggling,
then turning grave. “Sorry, we just… she didn’t treat us good. Just getting our
paychecks was a hassle. Sheryl, I mean. I was just an intern so I didn’t get
paid at all.”

“Which
totally sucked,” said Passant. “You did the same job as me, Teen. You should’ve
gotten paid the same as me. Helga sucks.”

Milo
said, “Wasn’t the firm a partnership?”

“Marjie
and Mr. Cohen didn’t control the money, she did. The building was hers, the
idea was hers, everything was hers. She was always talking like she was the one
who’d made up Green. Like Al Gore had never existed. You think
she
killed Des?”

“You
think she could’ve?”

The
women looked at each other. Sanfelice stirred her drink. Passant said, “I’m not
saying she’d have done it. But she’s not like a regular person, you know?”

“Different,”
said Sanfelice. “She’s from Europe.”

The
red-shirted kid reappeared, this time bearing two plates.

Bacon
burgers oozing with molten white and orange cheese, salads the size of a baby’s
head, a hay-bale of onion rings. “Um, do you guys still want this?”

Bettina
Sanfelice said, “I was hungry but now
I’m
also feeling nauseous.”

Sheryl
Passant said, “Yuck. Do we still have to pay?”

Milo
said, “Put the food down, son, and give me the check. Here’s your tip in
advance.” Forking over bills.

The
kid said, “Sweet.”

A few
minutes of routine questions produced nothing new about Desmond Backer, whom
the women described as “Nice and totally hot.” The shock had worn off and they
both seemed pleased at the attention.

Bettina
Sanfelice studied her burger. “It’s probably gross but I’m going to try.”

Sheryl Passant said, “Not me.” Moments later, a grin
as she bit in, wiped her chin. “Guess I lied.”

Milo
let them eat, offered drink refills. They declined. Sanfelice wholeheartedly,
Passant with some regret.

Milo
stared at me.

I
raised my eyebrows.

He
cocked his head to the side and when I didn’t respond, said, “My partner’s
gonna ask you some questions now. They’re a little personal, so sorry. But we
really need to ask.”

Waving
the red-shirted kid over, he ordered an extra-large Coke.

Both
women had stopped eating.

Sheryl
Passant’s thigh pressed hard against mine.