Nothing to Fear But Ferrets (25 page)

By then, I’d waited for the SID team to let me climb my stairs again, more carefully this time. They’d gathered what evidence they could, then kindly helped me scatter sand along the wooden stairs from a bag some landscapers had left long ago.

A few neighbors filtered through my open gate. Phil Ashler, for one, hadn’t seen anyone do the nasty deed on my property.

Lyle Urquard left his bicycle on the edge of the street to check on me, but he hadn’t been around to view who’d committed the vandalism, either. “Was Charlotte here?” he asked anxiously. “She wasn’t hurt, was she?” He didn’t seem overly concerned about me, but maybe that was because he could see I’d survived.

No sign of the usually nosy Thomasons, but Ike Janus parked his Hummer and checked what was happening, too.

A while later, after gaining access to my apartment, I used some strong household cleaner to take an initial swipe at eliminating the oil, aching with every snail-like motion I made. To my surprise, Noralles hung around and even helped a little.

As I finished all I had intended to do that night, he eyed me up and down. “You don’t look so hot, Kendra.”

“Thanks. I’d like to say the same, but I can’t.” I eyed him similarly up and down and waggled my brows à la Groucho. Was I flirting? Heck, I didn’t know. Maybe the fall had knocked all common sense out of my noggin. Of course it had been my nether end I’d landed on.

Noralles laughed, then grew sober within the same thirty seconds. “I’ll add a patrol along this street tonight.”

“No need, unless you think the mad oiler intends to come back. I’m staying at Jeff Hubbard’s.” As his gaze intensified, I felt my face flush. “He’s out of town,” I clarified quickly. “Lexie and I are staying with his dog, Odin.”

“Well, give me his address and I’ll make sure there’s an extra patrol there, too. This wasn’t a random act of vandalism. Whoever did it knows you. And wherever you go, nasty surprises may follow.”

I felt my knees weaken and grabbed on to the partially scrubbed stair rail.

“You need to be checked over,” Noralles said. “I’ll drop you at the St. Joe’s emergency room.”

Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank was the nearest major medical facility. But I no longer had medical insurance. Plus, what ailed me now besides ugly bumps and bruises couldn’t be cured by emergency medicine specialists.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’m okay.” I watched him watch me while I poured myself into the Beamer. He sat in his unmarked car while I backed out the driveway and used the automatic control to close the gate behind me.

And I repeated to myself as a mantra, “I’m okay,” during my whole ride to Jeff ’s.

 
LEXIE AND ODIN seemed happy to see me. Or maybe their pleased wriggles and wags in Jeff’s kitchen simply signified eager anticipation of dinner and their last walk of the evening. I didn’t want to disappoint them but, after feeding them, led them only a short way on their leashes—making sure to stay on the sidewalk beneath the streetlights before turning back. Fortunately, Jeff’s residential road was flat and straight. The idea of navigating a curving, climbing street like mine didn’t sound inviting to my sore carcass.

And here, I could see anyone approaching for several blocks.

We soon went inside, and I fixed myself a short glass of wine, strictly medicinal. Then I settled down on one of the white sectional sofa pieces atop the bright, Southwestern-style area rug in Jeff’s sunken living room. I turned on his wide-screen TV to watch a mindless sitcom to get my mind off my aches.

My cell phone rang, and I looked at its digital display. Avvie Milton’s number. The last time I’d visited Pansy, her potbellied pig, had been earlier that evening, but by then it felt like a lifetime ago.

“Hi, Avvie,” I said. “Are you home?”

“Yes, and Pansy’s great. Thanks so much for taking care of her for me.”

“You’re welcome.” I relaxed a little in relief. The way things had gone that evening, I’d half expected to be scolded for mistreating her pet in some unanticipated way.

“You sound funny. Are you okay?”

I didn’t feel at all funny. And though Avvie and I hadn’t been in touch much recently, we’d been good friends up until a few months ago.

A little to my surprise, and a lot to my chagrin, I found myself pouring out the night’s misadventures to her.

“Oh, Kendra, are you okay? Do you want to come here and spend the night? What are you going to do?” And then, before I could spew out any answers, she said something that clinched my reply to her invitation, even had I been inclined to accept it. “You’re not sticking your nose in the investigation of the Chad Chatsworth murder, are you? I mean, Kendra, you nearly got yourself killed the last time you interfered in a murder case, but at least you had a stake in that one.”

She’d been bent out of shape then because of some fingers I’d pointed toward her, but at that point I’d been flinging out accusations against everyone to see where they stuck. But that didn’t excuse her interfering with my interference in this case.

“Thanks for asking,” I said coolly and noncommittally. “I’m glad Pansy enjoyed my pet-sitting. I’ll get your keys back to you soon.” After a hurried goodbye, I hung up.

I hadn’t much time to simmer over Avvie’s intrusion before my cell phone rang again. The caller this time was the man of this very house, Jeff.

After my last conversation, I had every intention of remaining unruffled and talking only of how much fun Odin, Lexie, and I were having. Since Jeff and I were hardly speaking to each other anyway, that shouldn’t have been hard.

Only it proved to be impossible. Jeff’s voice sounded calm and caring. His flight to Phoenix had been fine, and so far his business meetings about the security system at a major corporation’s headquarters had gone magnificently.

“And Kendra,” he added. “I miss you.”

That did it. Whether he was a hypocrite or not about his prior married state, I missed him, too. Damn it. And I missed being able to share my problems with him.

So, once again, I found myself blurting out all that had happened.

“Damn it, Kendra, listen to Noralles this time. He—”

That was enough to break the spell his voice had cast about my poor bruised body. “He has his own agenda, Jeff,” I interjected irritably. “And I’m fine. Maybe even getting closer to whoever really killed Chad Chatsworth, and I’m making someone nervous.”

“That’s the point. Stay out of it. Look, I’ll be home in a couple of days. We can talk about it then, and I’ll help you—”

“Fine, Jeff. Thanks. Odin says good night. Lexie, too.” And then I hung up without saying good night.

I didn’t need a macho security guy P.I. telling me how to run whatever investigation I intended to make.

I didn’t want Jeff Hubbard, the secret ex-husband, interfering in my life.

I didn’t want . . .

And then I realized what I did want that I could get right here, in Jeff’s house, while he was gone. He’d never know about it, so that would make it okay.

Well, ethically it wouldn’t, but who would ever know but Odin and Lexie? And they’d never tell.

They did follow me into the guest bedroom, though—the one I’d slept in when I’d first started pet-sitting for Jeff, before I started sleeping
with
him. The one I should have moved into now, but hadn’t. The room that doubled as a storeroom for boxes of some of his security company files.

The one that contained a carton labeled PHILIPE PELLERA.

That box was at the bottom of a stack of four. I made certain to put the others in order as I lifted them down, so when I returned them, they’d stay the same way. That job wasn’t easy, the way my body ached at every move, but at least with all the walking and lifting I’d done that evening, I was even more sure I hadn’t broken any bones in my fall.

To make it easier on myself, I sat on the edge of the bed rather than on the floor after scooting that particular box right beside me. And then I lifted its lid.

Chapter Twenty-seven

THE FIRST FILES on Philipe Pellera were much as I’d anticipated. They mostly contained data about his professional tours to U.S. cities. Jeff had assessed his security, found it slack, and made suggestions that Philipe and his entourage incorporated into their travel plans. They’d insisted that various venues where Philipe performed beef up security, too.

And no wonder. The voluminous files toward the back described a deranged fan who’d obsessively adored Philipe. Sitting on the guest room bed, I foraged through in fascination. Philipe had gotten an injunction to prevent the woman from even attending his concerts, since she always managed to dupe the guards into letting her up on stage with him. She didn’t seem inclined to injure him but had attacked nearly every woman in Philipe’s backup band and dancers, accusing each of trying to seduce her famous sweetheart.

Someone as obsessed as she was likely to violate any injunction, which she did. Worse, she’d come on stage and nicked a dancer in Philipe’s troupe with a knife, eliciting streams of blood and panicking the audience members.

That was two years ago. Criminal charges were filed against the fixated Ms. Eileen Green. Civil, too, though she had countered with a claim of her own: Philipe Pellera had committed malicious carnal mesmerizing of female audience members, which had caused her to act in a totally uncharacteristic manner.

Not a tort I’d ever heard of, but the claim had apparently caused Philipe to drop his civil action, and both parties had settled sort of amicably. A newspaper clipping in the file indicated that Ms. Green had gotten off the criminal charge, too, with just a slap on the wrist of the hand she’d used to wield her knife: probation and community service.

Rehashing what I’d read, I put it all back as I’d found it. Most was public record anyway, so I felt less ethically challenged about snooping in Jeff’s files.

Nothing there handed me greater insight on why Philipe might have had it in for Chad Chatsworth. Of course, I already knew Chad had fired him, so that could be a clue. So could the way Philipe comforted Trudi. And if Philipe had murdered Chad, that might be motive enough for him to frame Charlotte, Yul, or anyone else that would keep fingers from pointing toward him.

But nothing in the files bent those accusatory fingers away from Philipe, either.

 
SO, I WAS back to considering Yul’s uncharacteristic chattiness. I left Lexie and Odin together at Jeff ’s the next morning, which was Monday. After my early visits, I headed for Borden Yurick’s offices.

His effervescent receptionist, Mignon, sat in her usual seat behind the big desk at the entry, where the hostess had once awaited diners at this former restaurant. Mignon was on the phone, nodding, and her auburn curls made small corkscrew motions about her face. She smiled as she saw me and waved her dangerously filed fingernails.

I waved back as I headed through the door into the suite’s inner sanctum. My other hand held the file containing my suspect list in Chad Chatsworth’s murder and their increasingly intertwining connections. I peered into Borden’s office, but he wasn’t there. In an empty cubicle with a window, I sat down and booted up the computer. I headed for the best legal database to which Borden subscribed, typed in my password, and dug in.

An hour later, the stuff on my suspect list had expanded further—sort of—and my head was spinning.

I’d gotten lots of data on nearly everyone whose backgrounds I’d researched that day. I knew about Trudi Norman’s family holdings in her hometown. Chad’s relations’ resources, too. And how Dave Driscoll, the computer geek, had gotten into trouble more than once for hacking into multiple government information systems. He’d claimed to be doing it to prove how insecure they were, and had gotten off with warnings . . . so far.

Philipe Pellera’s records were surprisingly scant on official databases. Or maybe that was just a comparative assessment, since in doing the usual Internet searches the hits on Philipe’s name were astronomical. But other than his owning and driving a car, and maintaining a few business interests, there wasn’t much on him. He owned no real estate, hadn’t been arrested or even sued except in that Eileen Green matter, and he’d also been a witness in the criminal action against her. Otherwise, he had a legally uneventful history.

Same lack of exciting stuff on Charlotte, though her credit report was hurting till she won the riches on her reality show.

No, what really got my attention and caused my brain rotation was the one other person in this equation whom I’d attempted to psych out online: Yul Silva.

The problem?

He didn’t exist—at least not before eleven months ago.

I tried variations on his first and last names. There were references to former celebrity Yul Brynner galore. Others to Silvas and da Silvas. The closest hits prior to last year did not light on men of similar age or background to Charlotte’s Yul.

He had a California driver’s license, and the red sports car he drove was leased. But those were the only records I found in these detailed databases.

No listing of his birth in any state.

Of course, a lot of stuff was verboten to visit in some states for privacy reasons, so it could just be that this guy happened to move from one to another in such a manner as to obfuscate any of the usual early-life info. Or he’d taken on a legal alias in anticipation of movie stardom.

Still, somewhere there should have been something linking his nom de guerre with his given name.

I needed to move along, and so I ended up by doing a final search on behalf of Marie Seidforth, the boxer lady, and Jon Arlen with the treasure-hunting Welsh terrier.

It didn’t look good for Jon and Jonesy, and I had to tell them so. Finders keepers didn’t usually cut it when it came to trespassing on someone else’s property. Sure, I was a damned good attorney, and when I got my license back, I’d craft a great argument for Jon if he was my client. But even great arguments often didn’t succeed in the face of unfavorable precedent.