Natural Causes (3 page)

I stared at him. "For writing soaps?"

"For writing soaps," he said with disgust.
"They pay me twenty-six grand, Harry. So don't expect me to show
much pity for Quentin. He had his house in Indian Hill. And his
Rolls-Royce. And his centerfold wife, who had the brains of a Playboy
bunny and fucked like one. They had the crew out to the house one
Christmas Eve, and that woman got so loaded that she knocked over the
tree. But she looked good doing it. I'll give Quentin that. And
that's all I'll give him. He had what he wanted--all that money could
buy. And if he's dead now because he bought the wrong stuff, well ...
that's tough."

"What kind of stuff?" I asked him.

"They found him dead on the bathroom floor in
the Belle Vista. He'd been taking a shower and he apparently slipped
on the soap and fell through the glass shower curtain and bled to
death. Now, understand, this is a guy who couldn't take a piss
without saving the last few drops in a sample bottle. This is a guy
who'd phone his internist to see if there'd been any calls. You going
to tell me that Quentin Dover slipped on soap? And then lay there for
almost two whole days without anyone knowing where he was?"

"What did he slip on?"

"His own obsessions, probably. Quentin was
always looking for the easy way out. Anything that could kill the
pain and the worry and ease the burden of having to make all that
dough. Hell, you read the papers. So do the L.A. coroners. It's just
a matter of time before they figure things out. He'd probably been
drinking; he bought his way into the wrong crowd; somebody fed him a
little too much Dr. Feelgood; and he croaked. It happens every day to
much nicer people than Quentin Dover. And if he didn't work for
United, nobody'd give a shit."

"Not even his wife?"

Jack shrugged. "You'd
have to ask her."

***

That's what I decided to do. I had Moon phone the
woman to let her know that I was coming out to talk to her about her
husband. While he was arranging the meeting, I found a phone in an
empty office and called the L.A. police to see what they had on
Dover's death. They didn't have much or, at least, they weren't
saying much. The officer I spoke to--a Lieutenant Escobar--read me a
prepared statement, the gist of which was that Dover had died of loss
of blood, following an accident in the shower. When I asked him what
had caused the accident, he gave me the usual runaround.

"That hasn't been determined, yet. We're waiting
for the results of a chemical analysis of his internal organs. It may
take weeks, even months."

"Why so long?"

"He was in pretty bad shape," the cop said.
"You know, he'd been dead for several days."

"Is there any chance that it might not have been
an accident?"

"We've more or less ruled out homicide."

"Could it have been a suicide?" I asked.

"Death by natural causes is what it says on this
piece of paper," the cop said with a sigh.

"Then why are you running those tests?"

"It's standard procedure," he said. "Look,
are you a relative or what?"

"I'm a Cincinnati Y. 1. My name is Stoner and
I've been hired to look into Dover's death."

"Hired by the family-?"

"That's privileged information," I told
him, which really burned him up.

"You said your name is Stoner?" he said,
and I could hear him scratching my name down on a pad. That's what
they do when they want to put the fear of the Lord into you--take
down your name.

"Harry Stoner," I said. "I'm
registered with the Ohio Police Commission, if you want to check me
out."

"O.K., Harry. We might just do that."

I'll bet, I said to myself. "In the meantime, do
you think you could get me a copy of the autopsy report?"
Escobar snickered. "That's privileged information," he said
and hung up.

If United was pulling any strings in L.A., Escobar
hadn't heard about it. Which was both good and bad. Good, if it meant
that the company wasn't meddling in the official investigation. And
bad if Glendora couldn't find me a contact or an informant on the
L.A. force. Of course, there was no way to know what United was up to
on the basis of one phone call. And I wasn't about to take Frank
Glendora's outraged protestations of corporate innocence at face
value.

I was pondering the difference between an
"independent investigation" and a conspiracy to obstruct,
when Jack Moon tapped me on the arm.

"I just got through talking to Marsha Dover,"
he said. "She was pretty drunk, Harry. And pretty upset."

"You think I should hold off on the meeting?"

"I don't know," he said. "At best the
woman's a foul-mouthed hick. And the sun don't rise on the days when
she isn't drunk."

"I guess I'll take my chances then."

"How about the trip to L.A.? When would you like
to do that?"

"As soon as possible," I said.

"There's a red-eye at eleven."

"Book us on it, Jack. And while you're at it,
see what Glendora can do about finding me someone to talk to at the
LAPD."

He said he'd get right on it.
 

4

I stopped at home before driving out to Indian
Hill--to pack an overnight bag and a Dopp kit. After I finished
packing, I put a quick call into my lawyer, Laurel Gould. She didn't
offer any advice that I hadn't already given myself, but it made me
feel better to know that Laurel was around to help in case I slipped
on a bar of soap.

By the time I'd finished with Laurel and started off
for my meeting with Marsha Dover, it was close to five-thirty. A
brief August thunderstorm slowed traffic down on northbound 71; so it
was almost six when I got to the Dover estate.

I drove past an empty gatehouse, down an oak-lined
drive, and parked in a gravel turnaround by the garages. An acre away
from me, a boy on a lawn tractor was mowing grass in front of a hedge
wall. It looked as if he'd been interrupted by the storm and was just
finishing up. The air echoed with the sounds of the mower. The rain
had stopped by then, although I could still hear it falling in the
branches of the oaks. Somewhere on the estate someone was playing
rock music on outdoor speakers.

The house was huge. Three stories, with dormers on
the top and gambrel-shaped windows on the second story.

The windows on the first floor were bayed and flanked
by louvered shutters. Two fieldstone chimneys stood at either end of
the long shed roof, with a third chimney projecting from its center.
A flagstone path led from the garages to the front door. I walked up
it to the stoop, pressed the doorbell, and waited. No one answered. I
pressed it again, and when no one answered again, I put an ear to the
door and listened. There wasn't a sound coming from inside the house.
All the noise was out on the lawn.

The roar of the mower got louder. I turned around and
saw that the boy had driven up to within a hundred feet of me. He
hopped off the tractor and walked over to the stoop. He was about
sixteen, tall, skinny, and tan, with a red bandana tied around his
head for a sweatband.

"Are you looking for Mrs. Dover?" he said.

"Yeah. Do you know where I can find her?"

"I think she's around back, by the pool. Just
follow the path through the garden. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," I said.

"Yeah." He swiveled on one foot, as if he
didn't really want to stop talking and go back to work. "She
sure can use the company. She's real low about Mr. Dover. Mr. Dover's
mom was here most of the day with her."

"Is she still here?"

"No. She left about an hour ago."

"You live in the neighborhood?" I asked the
kid.

He pointed to the distant hedgerows. "Right over
there. That's where we live."

"Well, thanks," I said again.

The boy looked disappointed as he turned back to the
mower. "I don't really do this all the time," he said. "I'm
just helping out until Marsha gets her head together." He was
going to have that conversation whether I joined in or not.

I left him talking to himself and followed the path
around the east side of the house into a topiary garden of
rosebushes. There was a marble fountain in the center of the garden,
ringed with shrubs. A despondent Cupid sat atop it, hands crossed,
legs crossed, looking as if he were about to fetch a sigh and resign
his post. The music I'd been hearing was coming from the top of the
stairs.

I climbed the staircase and found myself standing on
a large, tiled terrace abutting the rear of the house. A heartshaped
swimming pool was sunk in the tiles, its calm waters reflecting the
stormy sky. An umbrellaed patio table sat beside the pool. The
umbrella was closed and beaded with rain. A brass liquor cart was
parked next to the table, with bottles of whiskey, an ice bucket, and
several heavy crystal glasses on its top shelf. Two small PA
loudspeakers were propped on the lower shelf; and it was from them
that the music was coming. Between the pool and the umbrella table,
with the speakers at her head and an uncorked, half-empty bottle of
Jack Daniels within arm's reach, a blonde girl was lying on a woven
lounge chair. She was holding a rain-spattered silver sun-reflector
beneath her chin, and she was wearing silver aviator glasses on her
nose. She was very tan--too tan for a Cincinnatian--apparently drunk,
and jay naked.

The girl had long, beautiful legs and round,
pictureperfect breasts, without a strap mark to mar the tan or a
stretch mark to flaw her skin. Her hair was sun-bleached--very light,
almost the color of sand--and what I could see of her face was
breathtakingly pretty. Small mouth, darker than the surrounding skin.
Small, shapely nose. Strong bones in her cheeks. She was more than
pretty.

I stood at the edge of the terrace and watched her,
not knowing what to say. For awhile I didn't think she realized I was
there. Then she lowered the sun-reflector, spilling rainwater on her
breasts and down her flat tummy. She tilted her glasses back on her
forehead and gazed at me. Her eyes were dark blue, almost purple, and
clabbered with whiskey.

"Connie?" she said in a boozy, downhome
voice.

She tried to prop herself up on one arm, slipped, and
caught her elbow in the webbing of the chaise. The sunglasses fell
down, too, landing sideways on her nose. "You're not Connie,"
she said and wrenched her arm loose.

"No. I'm not Connie."

The girl picked a towel up off the tiles and draped
it around her body. I'd never seen a body like that outside of a
magazine, and the experience made me a little dizzy.

Seeing me hadn't done a thing for the girl. She
reached for the bottle of bourbon, took a swig, and said, "Well,
who the hell are you, then?"

"Harry Stoner. I'm here to talk to you about
your husband. Jack Moon told you about me this afternoon."

"Jack?" the woman said, passing a hand
through her golden hair. "Jack's in California."

"No. Jack's in town. He called you this
afternoon. Remember?"

The girl gave me a puzzled look. If that was a
stumper, I figured I was in for a long night.

"It's kind of gloomy to be sunbathing," I
said just to say something.

"What the fuck do you know about it?"
Marsha Dover said sullenly. "Quentin bought me a book that said
there were always good tanning rays in the afternoons. Even when it's
overcast. Besides, it didn't seem to bother you any when you were
standing over there with a hard-on."

She had a point. She also had one of the saltiest
tongues I'd heard this side of the Marine Corps. The combination of
that face and body with that tongue was bizarre and a little
disconcerting, like finding out that the Mona Lisa was a WAC.

"Do you mind talking to me about your husband?"
I said, trying to start something up.

"What if I do?" the girl said with sodden
petulance. "Nobody gives a shit about my feelings, anyway. Just
because I'm not a genius doesn't mean I haven't got feelings.

Quentin didn't marry me because I was a fucking
genius. And somebody sure as hell better let his momma know. That
woman has been on my back since I married Quentin--about how
Quentin's got a reputation to keep up and about how I gotta dress
right and I gotta talk right and I gotta do the sort of things she
wants me to do. Well, I'm fucking sick of it!

"Quentin's reputation." The girl laughed
bitterly. "He never gave a shit. Why the hell should I? And if
Connie's so goddamn strong, how come I was the one who had to go to
L.A.? How come I was the one who had to stare at his rotting body?
I'd have plain loved to have seen Connie do that. Momma's little
precious." She began to laugh again. "She'd have wet her
pants."

I let her laugh herself out, then tried to start
things up again. I knew it was hopeless--the girl was just too
drunk--but, judging from what Moon had said and what I'd already
heard, talking to Marsha Dover was always going to be relatively
hopeless. Like the girl had said, she was no genius.