Motive (3 page)

Milo said, “Appreciate the information, Mr. Fellinger. Unfortunately, Ms. Corey wasn’t hit by a car.”

“No? What, then?”

“She was shot.”

Grant Fellinger’s head thrust forward, as if ready to butt reality. “
Shot?
Jens said it was an accident.”

“We gave him no details so he assumed.”

“Great,” said Fellinger. “He does that a lot—jumps to conclusions, I’m always telling him about it. Yale, no less. Shot? By who?”

“We don’t know yet, Mr. Fellinger.”

“Shot,” Fellinger repeated. “Shot? Ursula? Jesus Christ.” His meaty arms dropped. Both hands were hirsute fists. He punched a palm. “This just knocks the stuffing out of me.”

“Anything you can tell us, sir—”

The attorney’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked spit, creating a bubbling noise. He threw up his hands. “You’d better come in.”

His office was surprisingly modest with a sliver of sky barely visible to the east. Plain wooden desk and matching credenza, oversized black leather chair, three functional chairs. A tweed sofa and glass coffee table created a conversational area near the rear wall. Fellinger moved behind his desk and motioned us toward the hard-backed chairs.

The grass-cloth wall above the credenza sported diplomas from the U. and its law school, supplemented by certificates in family law and arbitration. Photos hanging askew portrayed Fellinger with a pleasant-looking dark-haired woman and two boys at various stages of development. In the most recent shots, Fellinger’s sons were sullen teenagers. His wife had aged conspicuously.

Milo said, “You do family law. Was Ms. Corey involved in a nasty divorce?”

“They all have the potential to be nasty,” said Grant Fellinger. “If you’ve got two crucial ingredients.”

He waited.

I said, “Kids and money.”

“Bingo. Ursula and Richard had both but the kids weren’t an issue, they’re almost adults. It was all about dollar signs. Tweaking their settlement took five years, three of them after the decree.”

“They came back for more.”

“Fine-tuning,” said Fellinger. “We finally arrived at a mutually beneficial settlement. By we, I mean myself and Richard Corey’s attorney.”

“Who’s that, sir?”

“Earl Cohen. He’s old-school.”

I said, “Someone wanted rematches?”

“Both of them wanted rematches. Every year or so. For all my experience, it was a weird situation. One day they’d come in looking like best friends, saying the right things, willing to do anything to smooth things out. They’d leave looking cozy. Affectionate, even. I’d see them like that and wonder why the hell they divorced in the first place.”

Fellinger leaned forward. “This was
not
a situation where the lawyers kept it going to churn fees. Earl and I are both busy. This could’ve
been the exception—smooth sailing, genuine amicability, move on and have a nice life.”

I said, “The Coreys didn’t see it that way.”

“They moved on, all right. Then they’d retrench. What made it a royal pain was that Earl and I would take them at their word and proceed accordingly. Several thousand bucks of billable hours later, we’d both get irate phone calls, all bets are off, back to the trenches. The impetus never seemed connected to a specific event. Nor did they ever seem hostile when they showed up. It was as if they’d saved up their energy and were ready to reenlist. Last go-round was a year ago.”

Milo said, “Anyone walk away angry that time?”

Fellinger stared. “Could Richard do something like this? Good God, I hope not. I mean that would be disgusting. That would make me doubt my ability to judge people. No, Lieutenant, there was no anger from either side. In fact, they seemed genuinely settled.” His eyebrows rose. “Was Ursula robbed? Because she likes her jewelry, was wearing plenty today.”

Milo said, “No evidence of robbery.”

“You’re sure? I saw a whole lot of diamonds on her, maybe something’s missing.”

“We removed and cataloged three rings, Mr. Fellinger, along with a necklace, two bracelets, and a pair of ruby-and-gold earrings. Plus there was an expensive watch in her purse.”

Fellinger’s tiny mouth rotated. “That sounds about right. So you’re considering Richard a suspect? I guess the husband’s always where you start and Lord knows I’ve seen plenty of spouses I’d consider prime suspects if anything happened. But I don’t know about Richard. It really doesn’t fit.”

I’d been an expert witness on scores of divorce cases, couldn’t recall a single one where the opposing lawyer defended the enemy.

I said, “Richard’s a good guy.”

“Honestly?” said Fellinger. “He doesn’t have a winning personality but he’s always seemed to be decent and honest. Five years is plenty of
time to dig up dirt and, believe me, I dug. So did Earl—fishing around about Ursula. In fact, last year we met for drinks and had a laugh over it. All those hours spent trying to make each other’s clients look bad with zero success.”

“But they kept fighting.”

“Not fighting,” said Fellinger. “What I said, tweaking. Voices were never raised, they just wanted to nip and tuck their finances. To get an accurate accounting.”

Milo said, “If the divorce was resolved, why did Ursula come to see you today?”

“That,” said Fellinger, “brings us right back to the jewelry. Which is probably why I thought about it. Ursula’s got a lot of bling, expensive stuff she’s been buying for years. With divorce issues out of the way, she began thinking about her daughters, wanted to specify who got what. I don’t do that much estate work anymore but I agreed to handle it if it didn’t get too complicated. It turned out to be simple: two girls, fifty-fifty. It made Ursula feel better putting it in writing.”

“Codicil to her will,” said Milo.

Fellinger looked at him. “Did she sense something bad was going to happen? Not that I saw. Just the opposite, she was in a great mood. It’s what affluent people do, Detective. They think about their toys, fine-tune, try to feel in control.”

“Where did the affluence come from?”

“The business she and Richard built together. Import–export.”

“Of what?”

“Cheap crap,” said Fellinger. “Their description, not mine. You know those rubber sandals you get for two bucks in Chinatown? They’d bring them over in pallets from Vietnam at ten cents per unit.”

Milo said, “Nice profit margin.”

“Cost them twenty, twenty-five cents when you factor in shipping and transport, they wholesale out at seventy-five cents to a buck? I’d say that’s a fantastic profit.”

“What was their working arrangement?”

“Ursula did the purchasing. She was familiar with the Far East, her father had been some sort of diplomat. Richard’s the numbers-cruncher, manages the day by day. He’s also done a good job of investing their money.”

“In what?”

“Blue chips, preferred stock, bonds.”

“Conservative.”

“Extremely,” said Fellinger. “There’s also a rental property on the water in Oxnard.”

Milo said, “How large of an estate are we talking about?”

Fellinger’s eyebrows rose again, startled caterpillars. “Does that matter?”

“At this point, sir, everything matters.”

“Well … I suppose you could always access the family court records, numbers have been bandied around for five years.” Fellinger sat back, tented his hands over his firm, round gut. “Last accounting, their total net worth was between fourteen and fifteen million and there’s no debt to speak of.”

Milo whistled.

“Let me temper that a bit, Detective. Three and a half million is the appraised value of the main house, it’s a big spread in the West Valley, the daughters are into horses. That came out of Ursula’s half. Richard received the Oxnard condo, which he uses as his residence. Appraised value there is considerably less, around one point five, so Richard received another two million in stocks and bonds. Everything else was divided evenly.”

“Including Ursula’s jewelry?”

“No, sorry, that was also factored into Ursula’s half but it’s not that much, maybe five, six hundred thousand. Admittedly not piffle, but measured against an estate that size it wasn’t a big deal.”

I said, “Are any commercial properties owned by the business? Warehouses, offices?”

Fellinger shook his head. “Urrick, Ltd.—that’s the name of the
company, amalgam of both their names—operates lean and mean. It’s just Richard and Ursula, not even a secretary or a receptionist. They use typing services when the paper piles up and both of them work out of home offices. When merchandise arrives at the docks in San Pedro, one of them is there to facilitate direct shipment to the customer. When inventory needs to be stored, they rent warehouse space east of downtown, a sweetheart lease they signed during the recession—that’s Richard, nose for a bargain. That’s the beauty of their business, no need to stockpile for long, they’re middlemen, essentially get paid for moving goods from one place to another.”

“What was in dispute for five years?”

“Urrick, Ltd.’s worth if they ever did decide to dissolve the company. Ursula saw it as more valuable, Richard’s more of a glass-half-empty type.”

“What was the discrepancy?”

“It varied from tweak to tweak,” said Fellinger. “Usually around two million, give or take. What made it crazy was that neither of them was ever
interested
in splitting or selling. They were just talking theoretically and last year was their best ever, they moved in a big way into the religious market—Buddhist combustible paper.” He smiled. “Never heard of it, right?”

Milo and I shook our heads.

“Me neither, until they educated me. Apparently, when some Buddhists want something from their god, they burn a small paper replica on an altar. If it’s cash they’re after, they offer up what looks like Monopoly money. If it’s an automobile, they burn a little paper car. Et cetera. Last year, Ursula and Richard made a big investment in religious paper and it paid off.”

I said, “Why do you think they kept coming back to tweak?”

“Was it financial?” said Fellinger. “So they claimed but frankly, I thought it was a way for them to have contact outside of work without admitting it.”

“Ongoing chemistry.”

“Must be.”

Milo said, “Did either of them have any bad habits? Drugs, gambling?”

“Never.”

“What about love affairs? Jealousy?”

“It was always about money, Lieutenant.”

“Every year or so, they wheel in for a tune-up, meanwhile the business keeps running?”

“Harmoniously. I told you it was strange.”

I said, “Who initiated the divorce?”

“Even that was mutual.” Fellinger threw up his hands a third time. “Being objective, I’d have to call them a little nuts. In most cases litigants are out to grind each other down. In this case, they ground Earl and me down.” He laughed. Stopped himself. “And now Ursula’s dead. I’m assuming you’ll be notifying the girls and Richard. Because I sure as hell don’t want to.”

Milo said, “We’ll handle it, Mr. Fellinger. And we ask that you don’t talk to anyone about this conversation or the murder, in general.”

“Sure, I get it.”

“What’s Richard’s address and phone number?”

Fellinger consulted his computer, rattled off the information.

“The two daughters are the only children?”

“Ashley and Marissa.”

“Where can we reach them?”

Before Fellinger could answer, a knock sounded on the door. He shouted: “Busy!”

From the other side: “Your tea, Mr. F.?”

“Oh. Fine. Bring it in.”

Jens Williams entered bearing a silver-handled glass teacup on a crimp-edged pewter plate. The cup held pale amber liquid. A white, anemone-like blossom sat on the bottom.

Fellinger said, “The café is using glass?”

“This is ours, sir. I transferred it from Styrofoam.”

Fellinger inspected the tea. “Kind of a dinky flower, that’s all they had?”

“Unfortunately,” said Williams.

“Okay. Now please get me addresses and numbers for the Corey girls.”

“Shall I bring them to you or use the intercom?”

“Just bring it in.”

“You bet.” Williams left.

“You
bet
,” said Fellinger. “Like we’re pals. I had to talk to him about using my first name soon after he started but compared with the last assistant I had, he’s Einstein. That one covered up during the interview but the day she starts she’s in low-cut and low-back, you can see her ass-crack, talk about a clueless generation.”

“Changing times,” I said.

“Better than stagnation? Sometimes I wonder.”

Another knock. Jens Williams scurried in and handed a slip of paper to Fellinger. “The younger one’s in college, sir, we don’t have her dorm in our records. The older one lives at home, I wrote down the address.”

Fellinger crooked a thumb at the door. “How are things out there in the real world?”

“A few callbacks on court dates but nothing frantic.”

“Good. I’ll get to everything, these gentlemen are leaving.”

The building’s Operations and Security office occupied a corner of the ground floor, a few steps past the café and the public bathrooms. Windowless space set up with three untended workstations, the rear wall a grid of closed-circuit TV monitors and recorders. Metal chairs were lined up for easy viewing. Screens flickered; gray people and cars doing their thing.