The First Cut (33 page)

On the kitchen counter, he’d left keys attached to a leather cord that Lolly had never seen before. She didn’t touch it and continued her work. It was her day to clean the big picture windows in the great room. There were televisions in most of the rooms and she usually had them tuned to her favorite telenovelas on the Spanish language stations so she could follow the story as she moved through the house. She carried her plastic carryall of cleaning products and utensils into the great room and was about to turn on the television when she heard tapping.

She left the house through the patio doors. She saw nothing outside that could be making the noise. She poked around the flower beds that abutted a row of narrow windows that led to the basement. The windows were covered with soundproofing material and she could not see inside. On her hands and knees in the dirt, she pressed her ear to the glass.

Did she hear someone yelling “Help”? It was muffled and faint, but she swore she’d heard it.

She ran back inside the house, grabbed the keys, and tried to find one that fit into the lock on the basement door. She’d gone through three when she jumped within an inch of her life as Mister came through the back door. She hadn’t heard the warning blump blump of the loose cement block in the driveway.

She hid the keys behind her.

“Hey, Lolly Lolly. Whatcha doin’?”

“I was cleaning the windows in the great room, Mister John.”

“You don’t look like you’re cleaning the windows in the great room. Whatcha doin’? Tell the truth.”

She cringed when he came nearer. He could be so nice, making jokes and everything, but he could also get scary. His face would change. His eyes especially. He was scaring her now. She didn’t resist when he pulled her arm from behind her back and took the keys.

“I heard noises down there. Maybe rats?”

“Oh, I remember. I was watching television while I was working out. I must have left it on.” He put the keys in his pocket. “Didn’t I tell you not to bother with anything in the basement?”

“Yes, Mister, you did.”

“Didn’t I give you a nice raise this month?”

“Yes, Mister.”

“You know what housekeepers in this neighborhood earn. You earn more than any of your friends, don’t you? A lot more.”

“Yes, it’s true. You pay me good.”

“Okay then. So we don’t have any problems, right?”

“No, never. Everything’s great. I’m very happy here.”

“Good. I like having you here, Lolly. You’re a great gal.”

She saw through the kitchen windows that he had not pulled up by the garage but had left his car in the driveway. That was why there had been no blump blump. He was still looking at her in a way that made her uncomfortable.

“Lolly, do you have anything else on your mind? Anything you want to ask me about?”

“Um…No. Well, maybe. It’s just, the Missus. She can’t get out of her rooms.”

“She told you herself that she hasn’t been feeling well and wants to be left alone. She asked me to lock her in for her own good.”

“Okay.”

“Did she ask you to let her out?”

“No.”

“Does she seem like she’s not being well cared for?”

“No.”

“Okay then. Clearly she’s fine and you have nothing to worry about, right?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t.” He grabbed her by the shoulders with both hands. She tried not to flinch, but she was afraid of him, especially the way he was smiling now.

“Lolly, just stick to your knitting and you and I will get along just fine.”

“Knitting? I’m sorry, I—”

He chuckled. “That’s one of my mother’s old sayings. It’s a polite way to tell someone to mind their own business. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes. Oh, yes. I understand, Mister John. Okay. I’ll clean the windows now.”

T W E N T Y - N I N E

V
INING MADE HER WAY TO THE
118
EAST, PASSING THE SPOT WHERE
she’d tossed the necklace out the window. Let it sleep with the lizards. She took the 118 to the 405 to the 101, exiting at Laurel Canyon in Studio City. She parked on the street in front of Frankie Lynde’s condominium complex. The front gate was locked. The keypad still listed Frankie’s name. Vining pressed the button beside it and almost immediately the gate buzzed.

The door to Frankie’s condo was open. A man was going around the place with a tape measure and making notes on a pad of paper.

The dismantling of Lynde’s life was in progress. First her corpse, now her possessions.

She knocked on the door and called out.

Sharon Hernandez walked briskly into the living room from the rear of the condo. She was wearing a security firm’s uniform and wasn’t what Vining expected. She was about five-foot-four even with her thick-soled work shoes, her stature diminutive but solid. Five sparkling stud earrings descended the perimeter of each ear. Her thick, dark brown hair was streaked with red highlights, French-braided, looped behind her head, and tightly pinned. She had a pretty face. Energy seemed to spark from her. She had likely learned that she might as well dress as girly as she wanted as clothing or hairstyle would never dilute her basic appearance as a cute, petite female. Vining suspected she overcompensated by being a hellion in uniform.

She gave Vining a firm handshake. “Nice to meet you. I’m glad a female D is working Frankie’s case. Two Ds from Pasadena came to talk to me already. Tall and short.”

“Kissick and Ruiz.”

“Right. Ruiz came a second time. I don’t know why he bothered. Didn’t ask me anything new. It was like he made the trip for something to do. Got the impression he’s punching his time card until retirement.”

Vining didn’t comment. “What’s going on here?”

“Gerardo’s going to paint the place. Gerardo Rincon, this is Detective Nan Vining from Pasadena.”

They shook hands.

“Gerardo’s retired LAPD. Was a field sergeant.”

Vining had made him as law enforcement. “Yeah? How long were you in?”

“Twenty years and twenty seconds.” He scratched the side of his nose. “Started helping a buddy with his painting business on my days off. Five years later, I have my own crew and I’ve never been happier.”

“No one shooting at you on this job,” Vining said.

“Yeah.” He smiled past her, reflecting. “What it came down to was the betrayal, not the bullets. That’s what got to me. Firing cops for doing their jobs. Offering us as sacrifices to the media and the politicians.”

Hernandez weighed in. “I’ve got lots of years before I can retire, but I’m going to be out the door twenty seconds after. The politics have gotten ridiculous. If you get in a situation and your actions deviate one iota from policy…”

“Instead of backing you, the brass will cut off your head and hand it over,” Gerardo said. “Reason I retired was I got into a situation. Got called before the review board.”

The two women groaned.

“They’re sitting around the table asking me, why this, why that. Then it came to me. Today is my twentieth anniversary. I can retire. So I did.”

“Right then?” Vining’s face showed she admired his decisiveness.

“Twenty years and twenty seconds.”

Hernandez nodded. “Civilians will never understand what it’s like to be out there on the street, to have some guy whaling at your head with a brick or driving a car straight at you or trying to bite off your ear. The decisions I make on the spot with the pressure on will be put under a microscope by people who have no clue what it’s like to be in those circumstances.”

“And whose agenda has nothing to do with fairness,” Vining said. “Been there, done that.”

“Hiring William Bratton raised morale for a while,” Hernandez said. “Now we’re starting to ‘smile and wave’ like we did under Chief Parks. Avoid confrontation.”

“Pasadena’s hiring,” Vining said. “There’s politics everywhere, but Pasadena’s smaller. Family. I love it.”

“I’ve thought about that, especially now that Frankie’s gone.” Hernandez gave Gerardo’s arm a slap. “Enough bitching. I’ll let you get back to work. I’ve gotta take off soon. Nan, let’s go in here.”

She walked into Frankie’s bedroom and Vining followed.

Hernandez surveyed the room. “It’s still weird, being in Frankie’s place with her gone. The first week she went missing, I knew it was over for her, that she was dead. But it’s still weird.”

Vining thought,
This was where Frankie lived, but she never found her place.

“Frankie hasn’t even been buried yet and her father’s putting her condo on the market already?”

“Frankie left everything to me.” Hernandez responded to Vining’s expression. “Shocked me, too. She didn’t say anything. This attorney calls, says to come down. They’re reading Frankie’s will and I need to be there.”

“When did they read it?”

“Last night.”

Vining recalled her encounter with Frank Lynde at the station that morning and how troubled he was. Frankie’s will was the last nail in the coffin of their relationship.

“The department advises that we put all our documents in order, in case…I didn’t expect Frankie to leave me anything. Maybe pieces of jewelry I’d admired. But everything? Then I realized it made sense. Her aunt and grandmother always treated her like she was trash. She and her dad were getting along better at the end, but she never got over the way he abandoned her after her mother was murdered. Why should she? Some things people do are so bad, you should
never
get over them. That’s what I think. Why give them any peace that it’s all okay when it’s never gonna be okay? Know what I’m saying?”

Vining couldn’t disagree.

“Her leaving me all her stuff was a big F U to her family, in my opinion.”

Hernandez picked up a bottle of cologne from the dresser and spritzed herself. “You know what’s creepy, Frankie just recently put all her affairs in order. Had been on the force for seven years without even writing a will. A month ago, she pulled it all together. I mean everything—cemetery plot, funeral arrangements, flowers. Even the music she wanted played.”

“A month ago.”

“Yeah.”

“Sharon, what was going on with Frankie those last months?”

“It’s like I told the other two Ds, I don’t know. I knew she broke up with Ken Moore and I can’t say I was sorry about that. She even told me, ‘You’ll be happy, Sher. I’m not with Ken anymore.’”

“Did she say why?”

“It ran its course. Whatever. I used to tell her, ‘Frankie, he’s married. What are you doin’?’ So she stopped talking about him to me. I should have known not to confront her. She wasn’t one to talk about herself anyway. I worked side by side with her for years before she told me her mother had been murdered. She was the kind of person—We’d all be out at a bar, having a good time, talking, laughing, then you’d think about it later and realize the rest of us were doing the blabbing. All Frankie did was ask questions. Don’t get me wrong. She was great. She’d do anything for her friends. She was a stand-up gal. I loved Frankie. I miss her a lot. She was my sister. She was my girl.”

Her eyes reddened.

Vining didn’t tell her about Frankie’s abortion. Frankie had her reasons for keeping it a secret. Vining would preserve Frankie’s wishes.

Sharon sighed and rolled open a mirrored closet door.

“I’m glad she took care of the funeral. I have enough to deal with. Look at all this stuff.”

She started flipping through the hangers. In front, easiest to get to, were casual clothes including expensive leather jackets. Shoes overflowed a rack onto the floor. In the middle, harder to reach behind the closet doors, were a navy blue suit and strappy cocktail dresses.

Hernandez took out a halter dress in a green silk print. “Frankie wore this to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. She looked hot. She liked it when men looked at her. Liked nothing better than everyone turning when she came in. That was Frankie. Guess she craved the attention of men because she was always looking for her father’s love or some such psychobabble crap.”

She gathered the fabric between her hands and pressed her face against it. “Still smells like her. Cigarettes and that Escada perfume she liked.”

She closed the door and slid open the one on the opposite side, revealing Frankie’s uniforms in dry cleaner’s plastic.

“Check this out.”

Hernandez made suggestive noises as she displayed a series of bustiers, tube tops, miniskirts, clingy dresses with deep slits, boots, and sky-high platform shoes. Wigs on head forms lined the shelf above.

“Her work clothes from vice prostitution. She’d put on this stuff and we’d laugh. She’d tell me, ‘Sher, men are so simpleminded. They’ll risk being arrested just to rub up against a miniskirt, garter belt, and high heels.’”

“You think she went over to the dark side?”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense. She was in a weird place those last weeks.”

“Weird how?”

“All bipolar. Happy, but crazy happy. Then depressed. She’d call me, ‘Sher, let’s go to Vegas. Let’s go to Tahoe. Right now.’ The next week, she’d be, ‘Sher, I’m not going out today. Staying in bed. Tired.’ I was like, ‘Hey, Frankie, what’s goin’ on wit’ ju?’ And she was, ‘I’m fine. You worry too much. Worry about yourself.’ My boyfriend and I were just getting together then, you know, building, so I wasn’t spending as much time with her. Don’t get me wrong. I loved her, but she could be exhausting. Sometimes I had to get away for a little while. Look at this…Frankie loved this thing.”

She took down the long silver wig Frankie had worn the last day she’d worked the street, according to Detective Schuyler’s M.P. report. She put her hands around the foam neck and shook the fake head.

“Frankie, what did you get yourself into, girl? If you were here, I would slap some sense into you. I should have kicked her ass more. Maybe she’d still be here.”

“You did the best you could.”

Hernandez smoothed the wig. “That’s what we tell ourselves, isn’t it? Every day on the job. So is the asshole who did that to her gonna get away with it?”

It was a test.

“Not on my watch,” Vining responded.

“We’ll get him, Frankie.” Hernandez squared her chin. “We’ll get him good.” She set the wig form on the dresser.