Serpentine
- Автор: Келлерман Джонатан
- Серия: Alex Delaware #36
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine Books
- ISBN: 978-0-525-61855-3
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «Serpentine». Краткое содержание книги:
This murder warrants an immediate call. Milo’s independence has been compromised as never before, as the department pressures him to cater to the demands of a mogul: a hard-to-fathom, megarich young woman who is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases — the decades-old death of the mother she never knew.
The facts describe a likely loser: a mysterious woman found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the case and failed. But as Delaware and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. Too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats lurking in the present.
This is Delaware/Sturgis at their best: traversing the beautiful but forbidding place known as Los Angeles and exhuming the past in order to bring a vicious killer to justice.
I said, “Maybe someone without much experience?”
“You and your maybes. Yeah, could be that, but even experienced females sometimes jiggle around. My daughter was a dressage champ and when she’d first get on, she’d be this and that and back to this before she settled down.”
Milo said, “What did this person look like?”
“No idea, it was far away, a hundred yards give or take. Maybe it was like you said, Slim. A rookie rider, female or some small guy. All I can tell you is the horse was brown and not one of mine. There were two other rental ranches near me, one north, one south. Clip joints, anyone could waltz in and pay for an hour ride. Their animals were old and tired, more chance dropping on the trail than going wild and throwing anyone. I told the rangers all this. They looked at me like I was nuts.”
“Are either of the other ranches still in business?” said Milo.
“Nah, it’s all strip malls and apartments. You obviously haven’t taken the time to look.”
“You’re our first stop, ma’am.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?” Her fist did another swan dive. “Strip malls.”
I said, “Did you see the person who followed Arlette emerge from the forest?”
“Nope,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have, by then a ranger had found the body, it was a hubbub, all sorts of official vehicles. So I was pretty distracted.”
Milo said, “So someone could have come out without being noticed.”
“Absolutely,” said Winifred Gaines, “and there are also other trails that would lead you north or south of where Arlette started.”
Milo pulled out his pad. “Just to be thorough, what were the names of the other ranches?”
“Clip Joint One was Open Trails, Clip Joint Two was River Ridge, which made no sense ’cause there’s no river anywhere nearby.”
“Do you happen to recall who ran them?”
She put down her fork. “Open Trails were some Armenians from Glendale, River Ridge was this woman from Tujunga, real scatterbrain, had no clue. Neither of them lasted — maybe a year after Arlette died. That’s when the Armenians started selling off land and the whole development thing started. Now you answer my question: Why so gung ho after all this time?”
“Just what I told you, ma’am. We’re looking into a thirty—”
“Six-year-old murder. You’re thinking he did it to Arlette and then to someone else?”
“I can’t really get into—”
“Ha. Your eyes just got shifty, there’s my answer. Well, makes sense. Do you have any idea what he got up to after Arlette died?”
“We’ve been told he had women living with him at his house.”
“Bimbos coming in and out,” said Winifred Gaines. “Like he was that Playboy character... Hefner. It was common knowledge. Not a wholesome environment for the kids, especially the little one. He even changed the way he looked.”
“How so?”
“Before then he was this engineer-businessman type. Suits, ties, little Walter Pidgeon mustache.” She wiggled a finger under her nose. “Coke-bottle eyeglasses, the whole Mr. Wizard thing. Next time I saw him — we ran into each other at Huntington Gardens — he was with the little girl, had a total switcheroo.”
Another sub-nose wiggle was followed by a four-finger fan under her chin. “Now he had one of those goatee beards. Dyed it black, as believable as a campaign promise. And he was wearing those bell-bottoms. And one of those shirts.”
She stuck out her tongue, retrieved her fork, ate four shrimp.
I said, “Tasteless shirt?”
“Shiny silk,” she said, as if that settled it. “Shiny fake-diamond buttons, puffy sleeves — sissy sleeves. Paisley in crazy colors. Probably got it along with the boots on Rodeo Drive. I heard he went there for entertainment, too.”
“What kind of entertainment?”
“Some tacky nightclub. My husband told me. Jack was a lawyer with Skinner Thorndike downtown, avoided the Westside like a plague but had to take a deposition in Beverly Hills. Some movie producer who’d cheated someone, big surprise. The crook kept Jack waiting, he got stuck there until evening. He was walking to his car and guess who he spotted going into some club on Rodeo.”
“The new Dr. Des Barres.”
“New and not improved,” said Winifred Gaines. “When Jack came home he was laughing. ‘Honey, you’ll never guess who turned all hippie-dippie.’ ”
Milo said, “Did Jack tell you the name of the club?”
“I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. Like I said, he steered clear of anything west of Spring Street.”
“Was Dr. Des Barres with anyone?”
“Jack didn’t say, so he probably wasn’t. I’m sure all the company he needed was inside.” She snorted. “Beverly Hills. Place hasn’t been classy for a long time. Last year my granddaughter insisted we go there, there’s a store she likes on Beverly Drive, it was her birthday. You should’ve seen it. Hordes of Orientals, they’re dying their hair blue and yellow and whatnot, you’d think you were in Tokyo.”
Milo said, “So Dr. Des Barres made a lifestyle change. Anything else you can tell us about him or his family?”
“We didn’t socialize, they were just clients — Arlette was.”
I said, “What kind of person was she?”
“Sweet, soft-spoken, nice British accent. When we chitchatted it was about the horses. She knew her stuff. That’s why I can’t see her taking a tumble from a sweet thing like Bramble. So you suspect Tony of being a really bad guy. Even so, why bother? He’s dead, it’s all ancient history.”
Milo said, “Doing my job, ma’am. Trying to do it well.”
Her lips pursed and her brows arced.
“Well,” she said, “guess you can’t ask more than that from anyone.” New voice. Soft, unguarded. “Don’t mean to give you grief, you’re just catching me at a bad time. Yesterday was the anniversary of Jack’s death.”
“Sorry about that, ma’am.”
“Yeah, it’s been a laugh a minute.”
He said, “How long has he been gone?”
I figured that might elicit a sharp retort. Winifred Gaines sighed.
“Four years. Year after that, Alex moved away, six months later, Melinda. Can’t blame them, they’ve got great jobs, I’m grateful they’re not wastrels. When the area turned into a construction zone, the riding business dried up. I finally sold everything at auction. Except the horses, those I personally made sure were adopted by good people.”
She shook her head. “Now it’s just me and the house, which is too darn big. But I can’t bring myself to sell it. Bridget?”
The waitress came over. “What can I get you, Mrs. Gaines?”
“A beer. I know I said I was watching the calories but to heck with that.”
“Sure, Mrs. Gaines. Sam Adams like always?”
“Anything as long as it’s not some poor-excuse light. I want to feel full.” She looked at our plates. “Obviously you don’t. Bridget, set them up with to-go bags.”
Milo said, “That’s okay.”
“Waste,” said Winifred Gaines, “is not okay. You don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
Milo and I drank good robusto coffee as she nursed a tall glass of lager. When she’d emptied it, she called for the check.
He said, “On us, ma’am.”
“No chance. I pay my own way.”
But when Bridget came over and he was ready with enough cash to evoke a grinning “Thank you, sir!” Winifred Gaines made no attempt to stop the transaction.