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.
The three of us got up from the table and she picked up the to-go bag containing our uneaten food. Her walk aimed for confidence but there was slight unsteadiness in her step.
I held the door open for her. “Thanks, Slim.”
She made her way to the brown Mercedes. She’d left the car unlocked, opened the rear door and placed the bag on the seat.
Milo said, “Anything else you want to tell us, ma’am?”
“Just thanks for dinner. I noticed you paid with legal tender. Maybe there’s hope.”
We stood by as Winifred Gaines backed heedlessly into traffic, setting off tire squeals but no honks or road rage. She sped off, gray smoke belching from the Mercedes’s rear exhaust.
Milo said, “No one flipped her off. Place is a bastion of etiquette.”
I said, “Unlike that nest of barbarians, Beverly Hills.”
He laughed, studied the sky, turned serious. “The club she was talking about is probably The Azalea, only place I know of on Rodeo. Foil paper walls, disco ball, drinks with parasols, bad Chinese food. And perfect for a guy like Tony Des Barres two point oh.”
“Older guys and younger girls?”
“Members-only if you were male. The girls were a perk.”
“Where’d they come from?”
“Who knows?”
We got in the unmarked.
I said, “Sounds like you were inside. When was it active?”
“Before my time but not before Dr. Silverman’s.”
Rick was four years older than us. I did the math. It didn’t add up.
Splotches of pink had formed beneath his ears. I decided to let it ride.
He inserted the key but didn’t turn it. “Strictly speaking, also before Rick’s time. He wasn’t legal to drink — barely seventeen, junior at Harvard-Westlake, but even then he had the mustache. He got taken there by a school benefactor — some finance honcho who’d seen Rick play varsity b-ball and wanted to ‘counsel’ him about a scholarship to an Ivy. Rick was figuring a steak dinner, instead they end up walking through an unmarked door and into all that merriment.”
I said, “Older guys and younger girls? How’d taking Rick there figure in?”
“There was also a room upstairs where the perks weren’t girls.” Deep breath. “Lavender foil, fake-fur seating, Aubrey Beardsley prints. Subtle, huh? When the letch went to the john, Rick got the hell out of there and took a cab home. No further communication from the guy and no more scholarship talk. His parents couldn’t afford the Ivies so he went to the U., undergrad and med school. You know the rest — chief resident, the job at Cedars. When he gets home tonight, I’ll ask him what else he remembers about the place. If no one died in the E.R. and his mood’s okay.”
He waited for a lull in the traffic and backed out more smoothly than usual. As if compensating for Winifred Gaines’s heedless shotgun entry.
At the first opportunity, he swung a U on Huntington. “Any thoughts about what we just heard?”
I said, “Someone riding into the forest a few minutes after Arlette doesn’t mean much by itself. But with one staged accident we know about and two others that could also be setups, it is interesting.”
“Hate that word,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get fascinating.”
Two options for getting back to the Westside: Arroyo Seco Parkway to the Pasadena Freeway and through the downtown interchange, or reversing our trip on the 210. Both featured sections of red on Waze, creating online peppermint sticks. The 210 would deposit us closer to Beverly Glen.
At this hour, the on-ramp was metered and we idled in a queue of commuters, mostly people driving alone.
Milo said, “For argument’s sake, let’s say ol’ Winnie was right about a woman following Arlette and that it actually means something. That take you anywhere?”
I said, “A love rival.”
“That’s where my head went. Arlette died a year before Dorothy showed up. What if Des Barres started playing around while he was still married? Before he went all harem. He hooks up with a young lovely, she gets Dollar Sign Fever and sets her sights on being Wife Number Three. Only problem is, Number Two’s alive and kicking, so Dreaming Girl decides to clear the deck.”
“If so, it didn’t work. Des Barres never married again. But maybe she settled for a position in the harem, figuring it was temporary. Especially if it was a prime slot.”
“Meaning?”
“Top girl. What Tony Junior felt Dorothy was aiming for.”
He smiled sourly. “A pecking order.”
“There always is,” I said.
“Among women?”
“Among people.”
“Ah. Don’t tell the internet I just asked that.”
“I don’t know, man, you’re making me feel kind of uncomfortable.”
I flashed jazz hands. He flashed a new flavor of smile. Weak around the edges — preoccupied.
A few minutes later, he said, “Arlette’s in the way of Dreamy’s aspirations so she saddles up and takes action. Ride in, act nonchalant, strike up a conversation, and shove or yank Arlette off. She’s waiting for the marriage proposal but ol’ Tony Senior goes in a whole new directions and now there’s serious competition in the form of Dorothy. One fake accident worked, why not another. Now all I have to do is I.D. Ms. Maleficent.”
The auto queue opened suddenly and stayed that way. Muttering, “The Red Sea parts,” he eased onto the freeway and merged.
I said, “The scenario fits Dorothy’s murder but I can’t see any tie-in to P. J. Seeger’s motorcycle crash or Stan Barker’s tumble.”
“Why not? The same thing we’ve suggested all along. They both got too close to the truth.”
“Femme fatale clearing the decks years later? And years apart? As far as we know neither Barker or Seeger — anyone for that matter — made a connection to a woman living in the mansion. Du Galoway came the closest, and he didn’t suspect anyone but Des Barres.”
“Which, now that you mentioned it, could be righteous, Alex.”
“Des Barres collaborated on both murders.”
“Guy had enough charisma and dough to corral a harem. So what the hell do I do now?”
“More archaeology.”
As we passed into Glendale, he said, “All the time it’s taking, maybe we shoulda eaten.”
Before I could answer, his phone tooted horrific abuse of Handel’s Messiah. He glanced at the screen. “Martz. She’s been bugging me for a progress report. You’d think my ignoring her would be enough.”
Placing the phone between us on the bench seat, he speed-dialed and switched to speaker.
A male voice said, “Deputy Chief Martz’s office.”
“Lieutenant Sturgis returning her call.”
Throat clear. “Three calls according to my records, Lieutenant.”
“And you are?”
“Sergeant Schifter.”
“Glad you keep good records. She in?”
“Not at this moment.”
“Tell her I called with a regress report.”
“Pardon?”
“Regress, Sergeant. It’s the opposite of progress.”
Click. Wolf-grin.
I said, “You must’ve been fun to teach in grade school.”
“Actually, I was the soul of obedience and conformity.”
I laughed.
“No, really. By grade four I knew I was different but didn’t really understand it and figured I should keep my mouth shut. I was so quiet the teachers told my parents I needed to be ‘brought out.’ How’s that for irony? What about you? Model kid?”
“I liked school.”
“Big shock. Straight A’s, why not.”
“More than that,” I said. “It was safe. Then I’d go home.”