Murder Plays House (7 page)

Mrs. Kennedy smiled. “We fattened her right up. Look here.” She pulled out another photograph. This girl in the picture was by no means fat, but she was a world away from what she’d looked like in the previous photograph. Her skin looked smoother, her hair was neatly ironed and turned under at the ends, and almost glossy. Her smile was broad. She looked happy. I felt a pang at the thought of what befell her once she’d returned home to Dallas. I was willing to bet all the money in my wallet that her bulimia had returned full force once she’d been thrown into jail.

I spoke to the Kennedys for a while longer, and then told them that I’d send typed witness statements for them to sign and return. I asked them if they’d mind if I took the photographs with me, promising that I’d be sure to have Sandra return them. I left confident that I’d helped Sandra win her case. The word of a deacon and his wife, and the timed, dated photographs, were surely all the alibi Lara would need to provide. Not even a Texas jury could ignore
that evidence. There was even a chance that the prosecutor would see his way to dismissing the case before trial. Although, given that this would mean acknowledging what everyone else knew to be true—that his informant was a liar whose interest lay not in convicting actual criminals, but in protecting himself and keeping money flowing into his pockets—perhaps a dismissal was too much to hope for. When I’d worked at the Federal Defender, I’d come across all too many of this particular breed of informant scum. The most galling part of it all is the amount of my tax dollars the government blithely hands over to them as reward for their dishonesty. I’d been involved in cases where the confidential informant had earned millions of dollars setting up drug deals. Now, some of these guys certainly pulled in some actual drug dealers. After all, they were themselves involved in the business, and had been recruited precisely because of whom they knew. A shocking number, however, set up first-time offenders with no history of participation in drug crimes. I’d represented all too many of these folks, people whose sole involvement in the drug trade was at the behest of the informant. They were invariably facing ten-to-twenty-year sentences for their minor roles in drug conspiracies. At first I couldn’t figure out why the informants would prey on this kind of person. Then it finally hit me; why turn state’s evidence against some gangland thug who is bound to have someone track you down and exact retribution, when the DEA will pay you the same amount of money to set up a first-time loser? It’s a simple question of personal safety, and your basic snitch is nothing if not wise in the ways of self-preservation.

On my way home from the Kennedys, I was overcome by an insurmountable urge. Right here, only ten or fifteen miles out of my way, was Beulah’s Fried Chicken ‘n’ Waffles.
It really was too much to expect a pregnant woman to resist. On my way through the overwhelming LA traffic that was quite obviously conspiring with my obstetrician to keep me from my appointment with a platter of wings and thighs, I called Al.

“Where are you?” I asked him.

“Shooting range. Just leaving.”

“Good. You’re not too far. I’ll buy you lunch. Beulah’s.”

He didn’t even reply. He didn’t need to. My favorite thing about Al is his encyclopedic knowledge of the lunch counters of the Los Angeles basin. We share a devotion to greasy, budget cuisine. It’s what brought us together in the first place. When my first case was assigned to this gruff, sexist gun-toting ex-cop, I never imagined we’d end up friends. In fact, I vowed I’d never work with him again. I’m fairly confident he made the same promise to himself, when he saw me tripping through the office in a black leather miniskirt, acting like god’s gift to criminal defense. A week later, after a day spent interviewing a passel of good-natured Hell’s Angels, Al took me to Felipe’s for a French dip. My first bite of the sandwich served to seal Al in my affections, and I think I earned my place in his when I devoured, in two bites, the purple pickled egg he handed me.

I was dipping my fried chicken in maple syrup when he walked through the door.

“Couldn’t even wait?” he grumbled. But he grinned when a platter appeared before him as soon as his butt hit the chair. I’d gotten his order in at exactly the right moment.

While we gobbled our food, I told him about my success with the Texas case. When I was done recounting the tale, he waved a drumstick at me.

“Excellent luck. But will we get
paid?
”

“Sandra will file a request for investigation fees. We’ll get something, I’m sure.”

He wiped a stream of grease from his chin. “Well, thank God for that. Because we’ve got nothing on the calendar for the next two weeks.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all?”

He shook his head. “Big goose egg. And I’ve got to pay for the rat problem.”

I made a gagging sound. “I’ll cover half.”

“Nope,” he sighed. “My house, my problem. Anyway, I hired a kid to help me out. Cheaper than the exterminator. Remember Julio Rodriguez? I’ve got him digging around under my house looking for the dead ones.”

“He’s out?” I asked. Julio was one of Al’s protégés. He was a young kid with a talent for computers, who had used his skills in slightly less than legitimate ways. Rumor had it that it had taken upwards of a million dollars to close the holes he exposed in the Social Security Administrations computer system, and I’m pretty sure they never caught up to all the immigrants who benefited from Julio’s early-amnesty green card program. The thing about Julio was that he never benefited, financially, from any of it. As far as any of us could tell, he did it all out of a kind of Robin Hood impulse, stealing legitimacy from the government to provide it to his family, friends, and neighbors. Money never changed hands at all.

“Yup. Supervised release, as of two months ago. Poor kid, damn probation won’t let him work in the only trade he’s got, so he’s got to hunt rats for me.” In hacker cases like Julio’s, one of the conditions of release is always that there be no further contact with computers. It always seems sort of harsh to me. I mean, how’s a guy supposed to get a job nowadays if he can’t get near a computer? No wonder
Julio’s reduced to scraping rat corpses out from under Al’s garage.

Al patted his lips with a napkin and hunched forward in his chair. “We’re in trouble, Juliet.”

I nodded. I knew we were. “I’ve got five thousand dollars just sitting around in my separate checking account,” I told him. “That should hold us for a couple more months. We could pay your salary, and the phone bill at least.”

Al shook his head. “I’m not taking it from you.”

“That’s ridiculous. We’re partners, Al. You’ve sunk money into this. Now it’s my turn.”

He dipped a finger into his syrup and swirled it around. “No can do.”

“Al!” I said sharply. “I’m not willing to give up on us. We’re just in a slump. Things were going great. We got paid a ton of money for the Jupiter Jones case. We had those worker’s comp investigations. Sandra will get us paid. It’s building. Slowly, but it’s building.”

He shrugged, and then changed the subject. “You doing okay?”

“You mean because of the murder?”

He nodded. Then, in a gruff voice, as if uncomfortable with his own attempt at empathy, he said, “I know it can be hard, first time you see something like that.”

“Not as hard as being shot,” I said. I spoke from experience. Bullet wounds were one of the few things Al and I had in common.

“I don’t know. That’s different,” he said. At that moment, Al’s cell phone rang, and he sent an inquiring glance in my direction. I nodded, and he licked the syrup off his fingers and answered the phone. I could tell by his tone that he was talking to one of his talented and beautiful daughters, the younger of whom was an FBI agent in Phoenix. He
was probably in for a long chat, so I decided to do some calling of my own. I dialed Kat’s number. She didn’t sound entirely glad to hear from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Wrong? Nothing. I mean, nothing really. It’s just that I don’t think you’re going to get that house.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother-in-law says they’re not sure about selling. I mean, they aren’t sure it’s the right time. Right after Felix’s sister’s murder and everything.”

I asked in frustration. “Why not? That’s ridiculous. Don’t they
want
to get out of there? Isn’t the whole idea of living with such a horrible memory oppressive to them? I have to have it. We’re bursting at the seams in our apartment, and that’s even without the baby. Peter can’t get any work done because of the construction project on our block. We have got to move. And damn it, Kat. That’s
my
house.”

“You are so morbid, Juliet. Really you are. Why would you
want
to live there?”

I didn’t grace that comment with a response. After all, she had seen the living room. What was a dead body compared to hand-blown wall sconces?

“Let me show you some other houses,” Kat said. I sighed. “Come on.”

“You yourself said that everything out there is crap.”

Now it was her turn to sigh. “Well, maybe something will turn up. I mean, this place did, right?”

I was just about to beg off another fruitless house-hunting expedition when I noticed Al trying to get my attention. “One second,” I said to Kat.

“Possible insurance investigation,” he said, holding his hand over the phone.

“Really? Where?”

“Pasadena.”

I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to pick up the kids soon.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take the meeting myself.”

I put my phone back to my ear. “Kat?” I said.

“So? Are you coming?”

“Sure. But is it okay if I bring the kids? I’ve got to pick them up from school in half an hour.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got Ashkon with me today. He and Isaac can entertain each other.” Kat’s son was a year younger than Isaac, and nearly three inches taller. He also outweighed my kid by a good twenty pounds. Isaac would never admit it, but Ashkon scared the bejeezus out of him.

“That’ll be great,” I said.

Al was wiping his mouth with a carefully folded napkin when I got off the phone.

“Good case?” I said.

“Probably not. But it’s billable hours. And that’s what matters, right?”

I nodded. “Call me and let me know how it goes.”

K
AT
and I crammed our three kids into my station wagon, shoving the car seats in on top of each other in a mountain of straps, buckles, and velcro. Despite Kat’s entreaties, I wasn’t willing to risk the buttery leather of her Mercedes. I’d bought Ruby and Isaac bags of sour gummy bears as a bribe to ensure good behavior on our real estate rounds, and I knew from experience that at least two or three of the sugar-encrusted globs were going to end up adhered to someone’s butt. Better that it should be my crud-mobile that suffered the consequences of my lousy parenting.

“Just a couple, Ashkon,” Kat said, staring in horror at her son’s beatific face as he jammed the candy into his mouth, licking his fingers and giggling maniacally. Given Kat’s various food phobias, I suppose it was entirely possible that this was her child’s first experience with sugar in his life. He had crammed two-thirds of his bag of candy into his mouth, and he sat in his booster seat with the blissed-out
look of someone who has just found the secret to eternal life.

“Sorry,” I said. “I probably should have asked you before I gave him those. It’s just that since Ruby and Isaac had them . . .” my voice trailed off.

“It’s fine, really,” she said, looking nauseated. Thank goodness my friend was too polite to yell at me. It probably didn’t hurt, I guess, that she was enough of a real estate agent to remember that she wanted to make a sale at some point.

“Okay, so. What do you have to show me?” I asked.

Kat reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “There isn’t much new on the market. We saw almost everything the other day. But I found one place we haven’t looked at yet.”

It took a good forty minutes to wind our way up to Mulholland Drive. The house, when we finally arrived, didn’t look too bad, if you happened to be a devotee of bad 1970s architecture. And who isn’t, really? I could barely bring myself to get out of the car, and it was only Isaac’s urgent need to get to a bathroom that convinced me to go inside.

The listing agent was waiting for us in the kitchen, and I was full of something akin to admiration when I saw the avocado green appliances and orange Formica cabinets. You’ve got to appreciate that kind of devotion to the palette of the period—and 1973 was such an
interesting
year for colors.

“It’s beautiful!” Ruby announced, her voice almost reverent.

“What?” I said, staring at her.

“This house. It’s just like
The Brady Bunch!
I want to live here, Mama. Please, can we live here?”

With Peter’s purchase of TiVo he and Ruby had lately become devotees of all the television shows we used to watch when we were kids. Ruby was absolutely obsessed with both
The Brady Bunch
and
The Partridge Family
, and wandered around singing, “I Think I Love You,” and howling ‘Oh my nose!’ at odd intervals.

“You’re right, little lady, this is a beautiful home! Let’s see if we can convince your Mommy to buy it for you!”

I shot the listing agent who had made this comment a baleful scowl. He smiled back. Unlike Kat, this realtor looked the part. His blond hair was sprayed and marceled into a high wave that perched on his head like a sparrow on a tree branch. He was impeccably turned out in a black linen jacket and matching pants. I’d never before seen linen so crisp and unwrinkled. A gold ring in the shape of a horseshoe flashed on one knuckle, and it was all I could do to keep from telling him that he had the thing upside down—all the luck would leak right out of it. Worst of all, I had never met anyone so perky, not even when I had tangled with a religious cult. He had greeted Kat with an effusive hug, and begun to rave about the house as soon as we walked in the door.

My frown at his comment to Ruby seemed to faze him not at all. “This place is a true gem,” he shrilled. “Honestly, I can’t even believe I’m letting you guys in! I should be saving it for my own clients.” He waggled a reproving finger at Kat, as if my friend had forced him to open the doors of this dump to us.