Motive (2 page)

He raised his arm and brought his fist crashing toward the table.
Stopping just shy of contact, he dangled his fingers a millimeter above the surface. “If there is no secret boyfriend, maybe you’re right and a buddy of Kleffer was dispatched to carve her up.” He got to his feet. “Okay, thanks for the coffee.”

“You didn’t drink any.”

“It’s the thought that counts.” He paced a few circuits, returned. “What do you think about the meal being staged postmortem? Some sort of sick joke?”

I thought about that. “Sure, why not? If Kleffer did contract the killing, a mock meal could be a way of putting his stamp on it.”

“I cooked for you, you dumped me, now you’re dead meat.”

“You do have a way with words.”

He rubbed his face, like washing without water, loped to the coffeemaker, poured, took a sip, dumped his cup in the sink. “Nothing wrong with it, sorry, my gut’s raw.”

I said, “How many Hail Marys for wasting caffeine?”

“Add it to the tote board. How’s Robin?”

That sounded obligatory. A kid trained to say the right things.

“She’s great.”

“The pooch?”

“Charming as ever. How’s Rick?”

“Putting up with my foul temperament since I began working Hennepin.” Dropping the murder book back in the green case, he left the kitchen, paused at the front door. “I should’ve come to you sooner. Don’t know why the hell I didn’t.”

“I haven’t come up with much,” I said.

“Maybe if you’d been to the scene—”

“Doubtful.”

“Whatever. See ya.”

I said, “Hope something develops.”

Nothing did.

Two weeks later, he phoned to say the case was officially back-burnered,
no trace of anyone or anything linking Katherine’s death to Darius Kleffer, no other suspects.

I didn’t hear from him for another twenty days when he phoned, sounding adrenalized.

“Progress on Hennepin?”

“New case, amigo. This time you’re on it from the git-go.”

The crime scene was the bottom level of a subground Century City parking lot. Eighteen-story building on Avenue of the Stars. One of the older ones, built before developers managed to convince zoning boards that genuine skyscrapers made sense in seismic territory.

Easy drive from my house atop Beverly Glen and by the time I arrived the body was covered with a white cloth and the techs were finishing up photographing and scraping blood from the splotches spreading under the cloth. Red spray speckled a pillar to the left of the victim’s silver Jaguar sedan.

A white lizard-skin purse and a set of keys, including one bearing the snarling feline Jag logo, lay on the ground near the corpse. Loops of tire tracks crisscrossed the concrete, creating an overlay that defied interpretation. All the coils and swirls I could see looked dry and grayed by time. Not a single fresh oil spot, no sign of a skid or a sudden stop.

Milo, gloved up and wearing a brown suit and skinny black tie, stood away from the forensic activity. He held a small white rectangle in one hand, pressed his cell phone to his mouth with the other.

The area smelled of gasoline. Dusty frigid air forced from overhead ducts turned the tier into a meat locker. I stood around until Milo nodded at the unseen person on the other end of his phone conversation, clicked off, walked to the body, squatted, lifted the cloth, and drew it back gently.

You are hereby invited …

The woman had fallen facedown. Her hair was the blond of raw oak, styled in one of those bobs cut high in back to reveal the nape of the neck. Long smooth neck. She’d probably been proud of it.

No wounds to the back of her tall, slender frame. She wore fitted jeans with spangled seams, a red leather jacket that ended mid-buttocks, medium-heeled white pumps. Her right leg twisted awkwardly, partially dislodging its shoe and offering a view of the pump’s interior. Manolo Blahnik.

Platinum and gold glinted at two knuckles on each of her hands. The ear I could see was graced by a sizable rose-gold disk surrounded by pinpoint rubies.

Milo motioned to a male tech who looked like a high school junior, the kind of eager introvert who’d volunteer for Audio Visual Lab. “Okay if I flip her partially?”

The kid said, “C.I.’s come and gone and we’re finished, far as I’m concerned you can flip her completely.”

Milo shifted the woman as if she were made of spun sugar, lifting her just enough to give me a view of what had once been a lovely face: full-lipped, heart-shaped, clean-jawed. Expertly made up but no attempt to hide the fine lines earned by experience. My guess was early to midforties, extremely well tended.

Underneath the red jacket she wore a black silk blouse. A gold link necklace punctuated every two inches by small square diamonds circled a smooth neck. A bullet hole marked the sweet spot where the necklace met the center of her clavicle. Another entry wound marred her left cheek, an inch or so beneath the eye. That one had distorted her
expression into something hard to categorize: confusion, helplessness, terminal dismay.

Faint stippling around the holes said the shooter had been six inches to two feet away. Two clean shots to the windpipe and the brain said death had probably been quick. No exit wounds in her back made small caliber likely, a pair of .22s or .25s bouncing around inside her, ravaging tissue.

“Casings?”

Milo shook his head. “If there were, they were taken. There’s a thousand bucks and change in her purse as well as a Lady Rolex that isn’t working, maybe she was planning to take it in for repair. Plus a whole bunch of platinum cards and the bling she’s wearing. Need to see more?”

I studied the face for a second. All that cared-for beauty brought to this. “No.”

He rolled the body back, covered it up. “Thoughts?”

“She was probably targeted and followed on foot. Unless you’ve spotted fresh tire tracks that I missed.”

“Nope.”

“How many security cameras are in the lot?”

“Ready for this? Not one in the actual parking areas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was. There’s a unit above each elevator door and at the main entrance to the lot, plus a couple at the front and rear doors of the building.”

“Why nothing down here?”

“You tell me.”

“Who found her?”

“Another woman walking to her car. Poor thing was so shook up I had to back her Mercedes out for her. Took a while to calm her down for a statement, hence the relative quiet by the time you got here. What do you think about it being a frontal attack?”

“Shooting her from behind would be easier,” I said. “So maybe whoever did it wanted her to know who was killing her. Or the plan was to get her from the back but she heard footsteps and turned. Who is she?”

He handed me the small white rectangle.

California driver’s license of Ursula Corey, forty-seven years old, blnd/blu, five eight, one twenty-nine. Address in Calabasas.

“I mapped it,” he said. “Horse country. Fits an affluent lady.”

“Any idea what she was doing here?”

“Matter of fact I do. It was her housekeeper I was just on the phone with. Señora Ursula had a meeting with her lawyer, maid’s not sure what his name is, something with an ‘F,’ maybe Feldman or Fellman. Any other ideas? If not, I’m ready to check the directory.”

The lobby was half a football field of gray granite and brown marble under a thirty-foot coffered ceiling centered by a six-foot-wide Venetian glass chandelier. Bank of four elevators on each side. People in suits and business casual hustling back and forth. Plenty of gravity on some faces but no shortage of workplace levity—smiles, jests, bouncy strides. The news of the murder hadn’t made its way up from the basement.

I wondered if Ursula Corey had begun her final elevator ride feeling chipper.

Most of the tenants listed on the directory were law firms, the rest sounded like outfits that moved money around for fun and profit. Hundreds, maybe a thousand attorneys. The way people sue one another in L.A. you could probably develop an entire city occupied by legal types. But what masochist would take on the job of law enforcement, let alone toxic cleanup?

Milo and I scanned the F’s. A Feldman and a Feld were listed, both business managers.

He said, “Maybe to the housekeeper anyone with an office is an
abogado
,” and copied the suite numbers in his notepad. Dropping his eyes he stopped. Pointed to the spot where I’d just arrived.

Grant Fellinger. Law offices of Weintraub, Harrow, Micziewski and Fellinger. The entire south wing of floor seven.

“Best bet, right, lad?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Let’s give the housekeeper credit for knowing who’s an
abogado
and who isn’t.”

“There you go again,” said Milo. “Wanting to see the good in everybody.”

The lift was souped-up, barely audible, let us off seconds later facing a glass door backed by an inner wall of black slate. The law firm’s name was etched so discreetly you could barely read it. Maybe one of those
if-you-have-to-ask-you-don’t-belong
deals.

The young woman behind the reception desk was a pretty, bright-eyed Latina in a tasteful black dress and pearls. Serious mien. Terrific posture. Sitting that straight all day implied self-discipline. Milo’s badge evoked no change in expression.

“What can I do for you, Officers?”

“Is Ursula Corey a client of Mr. Fellinger?”

“One second please.” Deft fingers pushed buttons on a panel faster than I could follow. Handheld devices may have damaged attention span but they’ve done wonders for fine-motor coordination.

Half a minute later a tall man in his thirties wearing jeans with rolled bottoms, a tiny-collared white shirt, and a red paisley tie appeared. Longish dark hair was combed to look careless. Black-rimmed glasses and red-brown saddle shoes added up to hipster, not corporate lawyer.

His voice was soft, as if eager not to offend. “I’m Jens Williams, Mr. Fellinger’s paralegal. How can I help you?”

Milo repeated his question.

Jens Williams said, “Um, may I ask why you’re asking?” New England in his accent.

Milo smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Jens Williams’s return smile was lopsided. “Okay, yes, sir. Ms. Corey is a client. I’m just not at liberty to …” He shrugged. “She was just here, as a matter of fact.”

“How long ago?”

“I’d say … an hour ago, give or take. Why?”

“She was here to see Mr. Fellinger?”

A beat. “This is above my pay grade. Um, can you tell me what it’s about?”

“Ms. Corey was just found dead in the parking lot.”

Jens Williams’s hand shot to his mouth. “Oh my God, a car hit her?”

Milo said, “What kind of law does Mr. Fellinger practice?”

“Family and business litigation—my God, I just
saw
her.” Williams looked at the receptionist. One hand worried her pearls. Her jaw had dropped open and her posture had gone to hell.

Milo said, “We need to talk to Mr. Fellinger.”

Jens Williams replied, “Yes, yes, of course you do, I’ll go check, please hold on.”

He hurried away.

The receptionist said, “This is horrible. She
was
just here.”

Milo turned to her. “Sorry to deliver bad news.”

She shook her head. “That place is crazy dangerous.”

“The parking lot?”

“Don’t quote me but all those turns where you can’t see around the corner? Are you kidding?”

Milo said, “Scary.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I nearly got run over on the employee level.”

“Which level is that?”

“Second before the bottom.”

One above the death tier.

The receptionist said, “Did the person stick around or was it a hit and run?”

“No trace of the offender,” said Milo.

“God, that’s evil! Maybe now they’ll do something about it.”

“They?”

“The management company.”

“What should they do?”

“Like—I don’t know. Something. I mean look what happened.”

A voice said, “Gentlemen?” Jens Williams was back, standing ten feet behind the reception desk, crooking his thumb to the left.

We followed him up a long hall hung with generic abstractions. A short, stocky man emerged from an office midway up the corridor and stood with his arms folded across his chest. Fifty or so, he wore a pink shirt over blue pin-striped slacks held in place by leather-braid suspenders, a mint-green tie patterned with orange French horns, brown calfskin loafers.

Black hair combed straight back and thinning at the top was probably tinted. Bushy eyebrows topped a shelf-brow. His face was full, somewhat simian—more chimp than baboon. Clean-shaven but already blue in the beard zone by late morning.

Jens Williams said, “Mr. Fellinger, these are the police—”

Grant Fellinger silenced him with a hand-slash. A deep voice with an odd echoing quality emerged from plump but narrow lips: “Do me a favor and go down to the café and get me a white jasmine tea. Make sure they leave the flower in.”

“Plain, one Splenda?”

“Plain, no Splenda. I’m not feeling particularly sweet given the circumstances.”

Peevishness but no anxiety.

Williams said, “Done,” in a faint voice and hurried off. Maybe his was a job that required aerobic training.

Grant Fellinger kept his arms folded as he studied us. Everything
about him was thick—flat nose nearly as broad as the bud-lips below it, banjo-earlobes sprouting a few dark hairs, bull-neck, sturdy wrists, stubby fingers, sloping shoulders.

As if a sculptor had applied an extra layer of clay.

Milo introduced himself.

Fellinger nodded. “Ursula run over? I can’t believe it, she was just here, Jesus.” He gnawed his lip. “Forty-five minutes ago, she’s on top of the world. Now this.
Jeesus
.”

A finger swiped at the corner of one eye. “
Damn
. Did you get the moron who did it? If he didn’t have the decency to stick around, it should still be easy because there’s a surveillance camera above the exit.”

Milo said, “Ms. Corey left here forty-five minutes ago?”

“Give or take,” said Fellinger. “And not that much take, maybe five minutes, so check out who left the lot during that period and you’ve got your bad actor.”