Flipping Out (7 page)

'I
don't have your issues.'

'What
issues?'

'Mike,
she's smart, she's engaging, and deep down inside I'm sure she's a good person.
But she's a world- class meddler. She can't keep her nose out of other people's
business. Remind you of anyone?'

'Narrow
it down for me,' I said.

'If
you moved into her house, she'd be peeing under your window every night.'

'Oh,
that
world-class meddler. You think she's like my father?'

'Nora
Bannister is the female version of everything that drives you crazy about Big
Jim: nosy, bossy, manipulating, in your face - what did I leave out?'

'I
get it,' I said. 'What do you think about her theory that someone killed Jo to
screw up her writing career?'

'Oh
yeah, I forgot egomaniac. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give her theory a zero.
It pissed me off that she threw Marilyn into the mix of potential victims.'

'Maybe
she thinks if your wife is a target you'll work harder.'

'She's
playing us.'

'Of
course she's playing us. I don't think she shot Jo, but now that one of her
partners is a homicide victim, she's going to milk it to help her sell more books.
I'll bet the first thing she did when she woke up at 4:00 a.m. was call her
publicist to see if she could get booked on
Good Morning
America.''

We
rehashed everything we had put together since we caught the case and decided
that we hadn't made a hell of a lot of progress in the critical first
twenty-four hours. Fifteen minutes later we were at 611 South Cherokee, the
house Nora and her merry band were flipping.

There
was a squad car parked outside, its lights quietly flashing. The front yard was
wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. It was all part of the show.

'Murder
at
611
South Cherokee,' I said.

'Good
title for a book,' Terry said.

There
was a jet black BMW 328i convertible sitting in the driveway. The vanity plates
said
Joaquin.

'Looks like Joaquin
is doing pretty well for himself,' Terry said.

The front door
was wide open. We went inside. Marisol Dominguez was standing in the living
room with a heavyset Mexican man who was dressed in paint-spattered overalls.
He had a half-painted kitchen cabinet door in his hands and a puzzled look on
his face.

Marisol was
pissed. 'No, no, no,' she said, tapping on the door. '
Este es amarillo de la mostaza. Deseo amarillo del limón.'

^‘
Ah...limón,''
the painter said.
'Si
.'

She waved him
off, and he left to fix whatever he had done wrong.

She looked up at
us. 'He says he's a painter, but he can't tell the difference between mustard
and lemon. The book specifically says '
The kitchen
cabinets were painted bright yellow. Miranda thought the colour matched her
sunny disposition, but Stephen said it was lemon - a perfect metaphor for their
sour marriage.''
That's what I get for hiring a
bunch of wetbacks.'

It would be a
racist comment coming from somebody else, but Marisol was Mexican, so she knew
she could get away with it. I've heard her use the word before, strictly for
shock value, but in this case it was just a subtle display of power. She gave
us a challenging look that seemed to say, 'What are you two white cops going to
do? Arrest me for a bias crime?'

There were times
when Terry and I wondered why Tony stayed married to her, but every time we saw
her in person, we'd smack our heads and say, 'Oh, yeah.' Marisol might have
been short-changed in the charm department, but God had packed what little she
had into a kickass body. Today, it was on display in tight jeans and a man's
shirt tied in a knot at her midriff, leaving a three-inch band of smooth, dark
skin.

She had a
clipboard in one hand and a cigarette in the other. 'I knew you two would get
here sooner or later,' she said.

'Good to see you
too, Marisol,' Terry said.

'Don't take it
personally. It's just like I have a zillion things on this punch list that I
still have to get done.' She took an unladylike drag on the cigarette. 'I feel
bad about Jo's death, but if I told you I was grateful for the extra couple of
days to get the house ready, would that make me a suspect?'

'You're not a
suspect,' Terry lied. 'We just want to know what you know about her.'

'I hated her.
She treated me like I was the fucking help. Well, maybe I am, but without my
help, this house would never get done. She comes in as a five-percenter on the
fifth house in the series, and she thinks her shit smells like strawberries.
And she was always sucking up to Nora.'

'Did you two
argue?' Terry said. 'Ever fight?'

'I fight with my
husband. I fight with these dumb Mexican labourers. Her, I basically ignored. I
just hated her from a distance. I'm in this for the money, not the sisterhood.'

'Just for the
record,' Terry said, 'where were you Sunday night?'

'Home. I went to
sleep at ten. And just for the record, Detective Tony Dominguez can verify my
alibi. I was in bed when he got back from the poker game.'

She took another
drag on the cigarette, then mashed the butt into an ashtray that was sitting on
the mantel. 'Look boys, I know you got a homicide on your hands, but I'm
wasting oxygen here. Anything else before I get back to work?'

'Can we get a
tour of the house?' Terry said.

'I don't see why
not. Especially since your old lady has a piece of the action.'

'Yeah, she's one
of those annoying five-percenters.'

'Marilyn's not
so bad,' Marisol said. 'At least she doesn't think she's a princess.'

'Right,' Terry
said. 'And I'd be willing to testify under oath that her shit definitely does
not smell like strawberries.'

Marisol cracked
half a smile. 'You saw the cop car and the crime scene tape outside,' she said,
her tone slipping from bitch to sales-pitch mode. 'Since the house is about to go
on the market, it's been propped and decorated to reflect the murder house in
Nora's latest book. When we actually show it, the prospective buyers will be
guided around by actors wearing cop uniforms.'

'And all that
hoopla affects the price?' Terry said.

'People eat it
up,' she said. 'Our open houses are so popular that vendors set up on the
street to sell food to the gawkers.
The House to
Die For
open houses have edged out the LaBrea Tar Pits as the fourth
most popular attraction in LA.'

'How about the BMW
in the driveway? Is that part of the draw?'

'Hell, no.
That's mine. I got it in April. You like it?'

'This
house-flipping business must be pretty good. I know you can't afford it on
Tony's salary,' Terry said.

She grinned. 'No
way, Jose.'

'Who's Joaquin?'

The grin
disappeared. 'My brother,' she said. 'He died. Tony and I don't want kids, so
the car is my new baby. I gave it my brother's name. Come on, I'll show you
where the previous owner of the house was murdered.'

We entered the
master bedroom. Just inside the door was an easel with a large card describing
the room and its fictional history:

This is the 20'
x
30' airy master
bedroom where the lifeless body of Stephen Driscoll was found sprawled on the
plush Berber carpeting, the sun streaming down on the tragic scene from the
three Velux electric venting skylights.

Did the killer
lie in wait in the spacious walk-in closet or sneak softly across the
hand-stained cedar deck through the double-paned French sliding doors?

Did he or she
quickly wash away the evidence in one of the his-and-her dual Kohler sinks, or
was there enough time to savour the deadly deed with a languishing soak in the
fifteen-jet, multi-speed Jacuzzi tub?

Is this fiction,
or could Stephen Driscoll's nightmare become the home of your dreams?

There was a
chalk outline in the centre of the room. Stephen's last glass of wine and his
open cell phone were lying on the floor. His stamp collection book sat on the
desk, open to a full page of stamps, minus one from the centre. Several other
clues were positioned around the room.

'So who killed
him?' I said.

Marisol flashed
a smile. 'You'll have to buy the book. Or buy the house, and we'll throw the
book in for free.'

'Do you know who
killed Stephen Driscoll?' Terry said.

'Damn straight I
do.'

'And do you know
who killed Jo Drabyak?'

'No. So get off
my case. Tough shit that she's dead, but I didn't have anything to do with it.
I may be a bitch, but I'm not a murderous bitch.'

We spent the rest
of the day interviewing people connected to Jo, one of whom was so thrilled
with her son's bar mitzvah party that she insisted on showing us pictures. We
talked to a caterer, a photographer, and a DJ, all of whom worked with Jo and
said they would miss her.

'Personally and
financially,' the DJ added. 'She got me some great gigs.'

'In that case,
we're twice as sorry for your loss,' Terry said.

Chris High
tracked down a second neighbour who backed up the dog walker's story. He was
sure he had heard Jo pull into the garage at around eleven fifteen Sunday
night.

Almost everyone
we interviewed asked the same question. Why would anyone want to kill her? It
was a good question. Except that we were supposed to be asking it, and they
were supposed to be coming up with answers.

By five in the
afternoon we were back in the office updating Kilcullen on our most recent lack
of progress.

'What about
Reggie's arrests?' he said.

'We ran through
the most recent busts this morning. We have past arrests going back^ three years
being pulled out of the archives. So far, nothing jumps out.'

'Dig deeper,'
Kilcullen said. 'It might not be obvious. It may be hiding under the surface.'

'Meaning what?'
Terry said.

'OK, I'll give
you a dumb scenario,' Kilcullen said. 'Totally hypothetical. Let's say Reggie
busted a pimp. The guy wants to negotiate with Reggie, so what does he offer up
as a bargaining chip?'

'I don't know,'
Terry said. 'How horny is Reggie during the negotiation period?'

'Kiss my ass,
Biggs,' Kilcullen said. 'I'm trying to teach you something. The pimp tells
Reggie he can finger a cop who's taking bribes to look the other way when the
hookers are working his beat. So now Reggie's got something on a crooked cop,
and he's going to take it to IA.'

'I doubt it,'
Terry said. 'Reggie's too smart. He'd never just take some lowlife pimp's word
for it.'

'I told you it's
hypothetical,' Kilcullen said. 'In this case, Reggie buys the pimp's story, but
before he can report it, the rogue cop finds out, and he kills Reggie's wife.'

'Why?'

'Because that
would effectively put Reggie out of commission.'

'Why doesn't the
cop just kill Reggie?' Terry said.

'I said it was
dumb, dammit. I'm just trying to get you guys to think outside of the box.'

'Oh, right...the
dumb scenario school of management,' Terry said. He was winding up to take one
more poke at the boss, when Tony and Charlie walked into Kilcullen's office. In
reality, Charlie walked. Tony barrelled in, steaming mad.

'What the hell
are you guys doing questioning my wife?'

'What are you
talking about?' Terry said. 'We questioned the whole group connected to the
house flipping business. Charlie's wife, his mother-in-law...'

'And Marilyn?'
Tony said.

'Yeah, I worked
her over with a rubber hose. She confessed.'