Motive (21 page)

As she scooted away, Milo muttered, “After that, six feet under.”

He pulled out his cell phone. When she came back with chai and cumin-rich
papadum
and three kinds of chutney, he was well into his recent calls, deleting “toll-free bullshit” and “departmental bullshit” with grim satisfaction.

“What will you be having, Captain-Leftenant?”

“Anything’s fine.”

“Lamb?”

“Sure, great, thanks.”

“Lamb and veal,” she said. “The chicken looks good, also. The tandoori’s nice and hot.”

“Terrific.”

“Seafood?”

“Really, don’t go to any special trouble.”

“For you, nothing is trouble.”

When she was gone, I said, “I foresee a statue with your face on it over there, under the Delhi travel poster.”

“Nah, too fat for a god.”

“The happy Buddha?”

“Wrong religion.”

“How about the elephant deity, Ganesha?”

“You’re full of knowledge,” he said. “Got any about what we just saw between Fellinger and Ms. Pleather?”

“I didn’t pick up anything romantic or sexual but they seemed comfortable with each other.”

“Coupla lawyers doing business?”

“Maybe that’s all it was. On the other hand, they both have offices in the building, why confer in the parking lot? Maybe because Sullivan had used it before when she wanted to avoid notice.”

“Getting her pleather fix.”

“Clandestine drop-offs that drew Frankie DiMargio there. Same
for Kathy Hennepin, who came to drop off documents. Both were tagged as prey and maybe Sullivan played a role in it.”

“Couple of outwardly respectable types using the workplace as a hunting ground? What about Ursula?”

“Ursula didn’t need to be lured, she walked right into it,” I said. “Yes, outwardly, she was different, but something doomed her. I’m still betting on her breaking off the relationship with Fellinger.”

“Prize pet tries to escape and gets put down,” he said.

“Fellinger and Sullivan are both partners in high-level law firms, used to having authority. That fits being able to get Frankie to discontinue her cell phone account and withdraw totally. Frankie told her sister about a new person in her life. Soon after, she’s off the grid.”

“Change of slaves from Kathy to her. The novelty wore off?”

“Or Frankie ruined the game by asserting herself,” I said.

“You hurt my feelings, I stop your breathing.” He crunched a cracker to dust, brushed crumbs from his shirt. “Not only did Frankie drop her phone account; I spoke to her mother and she’s been using cash for a while. No credit cards for two years because her parents thought she couldn’t stay out of debt, found it cheaper to just give her money.”

“So maybe her allowance got augmented by her ‘new person.’ ”

“Same old story, pay to play.”

The bespectacled woman carried over a platter piled high with animal protein and placed it in front of Milo ceremoniously.

When we were alone again, he shook his head. “Time for Ganesha to feast … not sure I have an appetite.”

I said, “Don’t disillusion me.”

Midway through some marathon eating, he paused for breath. “No cameras in the damn tier. Fellinger and Sullivan would know that. You’re right, it is a perfect place for a conference about something other than work because no one spotting them would think anything
out of the ordinary. And two psychos would make it easier to subdue victims.”

He grimaced. “Help setting the damn table, you wash, I dry.”

“Or Sullivan’s role was more subtle,” I said. “You know what we usually see when there’s a female involved.”

“She’s the lure. If she
is
involved. Because let’s face it, kiddo, we’re running all over the place because she had a brief schmooze with Fellinger.”

“It’s more than that. She definitely knew Frankie.”

He put his fork down. “Poor kid delivers party-kinky duds, gets tagged and bagged—hell, a woman might be even better at spotting female vulnerability than a man, no?”

“She’d certainly be less threatening.”

“Maybe it went down that way with Kathy, too. It wasn’t Fellinger who snagged her in the elevator, it was his partnerette and now I’ve got both of them to keep an eye on.”

His eyes hooded. “Or we’re wrong about Sullivan in a real bad way.”

I said, “He’s grooming her as his next victim?”

“Why not? Suppose she did play a role introducing him to Frankie but had nothing to do with the bad stuff? Offing Ursula turned out to be a huge kick so he’s decided to raise his standards—capturing higher-level prey. That’s the moral dilemma, no? We spot Sullivan hanging out too long with Fellinger, do we warn her? If she really is his co-star, we’ve just blown the entire investigation.”

He downed two glasses of water, conference-called Reed and Binchy and informed them of the new surveillance regimen.

First step: pull up Flora Sullivan’s DMV so they’d know what she looked like and where she lived. Then get right on her at the same time Fellinger was being watched. But separately, both of them assigned to the building on Avenue of the Stars.

A scenario that would work well with half a dozen detectives. Reed
and Binchy alternating with Milo meant long shifts, the risk that new cases would pull the young detectives off.

“At least,” he told them, “you’ll earn mucho overtime, kids, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Either way, L.T.”

“You bet, Loot.”

Milo hung up, grinning.

“What?” I said.

“It’s so nice when the kids turn out well.”

For three days running, Flora Sullivan and Grant Fellinger arrived for work between eight thirty and ten a.m. Neither attorney was spotted leaving the building during the day; each was observed driving out of the parking lot between five thirty-four and six fifty-eight, p.m.

Night one: Ensconced in his Pacific Palisades house, Grant Fellinger never left. Flora Sullivan, on the other hand, paused only for a one-hour stopover at her Georgian mansion on June Street in Hancock Park before emerging wearing a black-spangled trouser outfit and jewelry that Binchy could see glinting clear across the street. Her hair was brushed out, curls slackened to waves. She carried a white purse not much larger than a cigarette pack.

Pausing to study her reflection in the driver’s window of her white Cayman S, she did a kissy thing with her lips, arched her back, got in the cool little sports car, and revved up.

Property tax records had her residing in the big, blocky house for the past fifteen years with one Gary Sullivan. But no man accompanied
her as she turned east on Sixth Street and headed toward downtown through Koreatown.

Destination: the Biltmore Hotel.

Aha! thought Binchy. Rich person’s version of a no-tell motel. Maybe he’d luck out and that Fellinger would show up, too.

But Sullivan had nothing spicy in mind. Walking straight to the hotel’s gilded grand ballroom, she attended a benefit dinner for Planned Parenthood.

Binchy, wearing a suit and tie, as he always did, managed to blend in with the eight-hundred-plus people during the cocktail hour.

When dinner was announced, he watched Flora Sullivan pick up her place-card and take her seat, introducing herself to her immediate neighbors, a pair of elderly, elegant women.

“Two drinks,” he reported the following morning. “Picked at her food, that’s probably how she stays skinny.”

“No boyfriend in sight,” said Milo.

“Nope. She drove back home alone.”

“Sounds like a fun evening, Sean.”

“Didn’t mind, Loot. I’m in the groove.”

Night two, Reed on Flora Sullivan, Milo on Grant Fellinger.

Sullivan’s turn to hunker down at home, appearing only to greet a
Real Food Daily
deliveryman, whom she tipped generously enough to evoke a smile.

“That’s a vegan place,” said Moe Reed. “Just like the stuff in Frankie DiMargio’s place.”

“Common ground based on no-cruelty?” said Milo. “I’m in danger of irony overdose.”

He hung up and continued watching nothing happen at Fellinger’s midsized contemporary abode. At nine fifty p.m., a woman stepped out, followed by the attorney. Milo recognized her as the aging brunette he’d seen in Fellinger’s office photos. No signs of the two boys in the
portraits and no cars other than the BMW and the Challenger. By now the kids would be in college, let’s hear it for empty nest.

The woman Milo knew from real estate records to be one half of the Grant and Bonnie Jo Fellinger Family Trust dyed her hair blond.

One of those attempts at holding onto hubby as time did its thing?

He watched Bonnie Jo pocket a ring of house-keys and slip her arm through her husband’s. The two of them walked up the block, heading north. Passing right by the Porsche 928 parked across the street.

The car was Rick’s Sunday drive but he was always good about sharing it. Appreciating Milo’s contention, tonight, that something “classy” would blend in on an affluent street.

Milo watched the couple stroll off and fade into the darkness. A few minutes later, the Fellingers were back in view, strolling languidly.

Bypassing their house, they continued south. Without breaking stride, Grant Fellinger planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek. She pecked him back.

The two of them, marital bliss personified. Like one of those ads for cruise ships, middle age filled with romance, what a hoot.

They sure looked comfortable with each other. When they returned a second time, Fellinger’s hand was draped over his wife’s shoulders, and her arm looped around his thick waist.

Exhibiting the ease you saw in contented couples.

Milo supposed he and Rick could fit that description, all those years together, fewer arguments, almost no drama.

Huge accomplishment, given the stress of both their jobs.

Given the fact that both of them were prone to crankiness.

Also the fact that they were men raised during a certain era; gay or not, emotional expression had never been a big factor in their household.

So no arm-looping for the two of them, even in West Hollywood where PDAs were business as usual.

Times had changed. Intellectually, Milo was fine with that. But
sometimes when he saw young guys in Boystown hugging and kissing and doing whatever the hell they pleased, it could jolt him and make him feel ancient.

Rick never said anything but it was definitely the same for him. Squinting the way he did, the compulsively barbered mustache rising and falling as his jaw flexed.

Hell, they
were
getting old. Just sitting around like this was freezing up his joints, let’s not even talk about the urinary system.

The lovebirds returned to their house, Bonnie Jo laughing at something Grant said, laughing again as Grant patted her more-than-ample ass.

All that happy-hearth hoohah hadn’t prevented the bastard from screwing Ursula Corey and Lord knew how many other women.

Helluvan actor.

Was he concealing a lot worse than adultery?

Bonnie Jo’s laughter lingered in Milo’s head.

She loves the guy
.

This one would not be easy.

Night three, as Moe Reed follows at a safe distance, Flora Sullivan drives home to Hancock Park, stays inside her mansion for an hour and fifty-two minutes before emerging, pushing a man in a wheelchair. Guy around her age, gray-haired, handsome, and broad-shouldered, the contrast even more marked when his upper body is measured against his withered legs.

Sullivan steps in front of the chair. The man smiles as she straightens his collar. She propels the chair curbside. Parked cars are thin on June Street tonight, and Reed worries his three-year-old Mustang, borrowed from the Narcotics impound stable, will be spotted, sitting obliquely north.

But Sullivan and the man in the chair have eyes only for each other. They talk. She adjusts his clothing a few more times. He takes hold of her hand and brings it to his lips, briefly.

Sullivan kisses the top of his head and, standing behind him, bites her lip and stares off into the distance. That brief gnaw, out of her companion’s view, the only hint life isn’t absolutely peachy.

Her white Porsche is the only vehicle any of the detectives has seen at the mansion, no way it will accommodate the man and the chair so Reed isn’t surprised by the silent arrival of a huge black hybrid van bearing livery plates and the discreetly gold-stenciled name of one of the city’s larger limo services above the rear left bumper. A black-suited driver gets out. His instant smile and enthusiastic wave imply familiarity. So do the return waves from Flora Sullivan and the man in the chair.

The driver slides open the van’s rear passenger door. An electric platform eases forward and lowers to sidewalk level. Taking the chair from Flora Sullivan, the driver wheels the man up the ramp and inside. As the door slides shut, Flora Sullivan walks into the quiet street, around to the driver’s side, gets in before the driver can assist her.

The van drives away, slowly, smoothly.

Reed waits a while before picking up the van’s taillights two blocks later. He follows the oversized vehicle onto Beverly Boulevard, hangs back as the van pulls into the valet lot of an extremely expensive Japanese restaurant just east of La Cienega.

Extremely
because last year Reed took Liz there for her birthday and the bill was a shock, though he figured he’d hid that pretty well because the rest of the evening had gone great …

No problem for people who live in Hancock Park and can afford a chauffeur.

The van pulls up in front of the restaurant. The driver gets the man in the chair out. Flora Sullivan takes over. Someone who looks like a maître d’ holds the door open.

Sullivan and her companion—a man who fits the stats provided for her husband, Gary, minus the disability—remain inside for nearly two hours. Halfway through, Sullivan comes out and brings the driver what looks to be a plate of sushi.

Fifteen minutes after arriving back at the mansion on June Street, lights out.

Two apparently happy couples. Milo and I and everyone else are beginning to doubt our hypotheses.