Not A Girl Detective (27 page)

“How intriguing.” I glanced toward the back, but

Mitchell wasn’t anywhere in sight. I had a minute.

“While we’re talking art, you haven’t encountered a

young sculptor named Jake Waite, have you?”

“The name doesn’t sound familiar. Should I know

him?”

“Well, he’s a real up-and-comer, and I know Asher

has the reputation of having an eye, so I figured you guys would be all over him.”

“Wait.” She turned beet-red. “Is he . . . good-

looking?”

“He looks good in jeans.”

“I know him. I’d just forgotten his name. But I could never forget
him
. I mean, the work.”

She went to a shelf and pulled down a thick three-

ring binder marked “Walk-Ins/2003.” It was stuffed

with page after page of artist’s slides. I shuddered at the thought of all the wounded egos trapped in there.

“When did Jake drop those off?”

“He stopped in, must have been a couple of months

ago, with an older guy, a friend of Asher’s.”

Edgar.

“Look at this,” she said, laying a sheet down on a

small light table.

I’d expected tacky bronzes. Big, triumphant phallic

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things. What I saw startled me. Arranged on the floor and mounted on the wall were what looked like the

craggy rocks and mountains of Japanese landscape

scrolls, but rendered in shiny, rainbow-hued plastic. It was safe to say I’d never seen anything like it.

“Asher wasn’t particularly taken with it.”

“Not his cup of tea?”

“You could say that.”

I smelled discontent brewing. “What’s your opinion?”

She looked pleased to have been asked. “I think the

work is amazing. It reconciles all sorts of oppositions: nature and culture, East and West, contemplation and

consumerism. And it’s luscious, absolutely luscious.”

“Melinda, I think you’re the one with the eye.”

“Not at all,” she said, smiling as wide as humanly

possible.

3 0

Perhaps it was naive to expect Detective King to wel-

come me with open arms.

“I have new evidence!” I exclaimed. “We might be

able to use it to nail Jake’s attacker. The one who faked his suicide!”

King stared at me from the other side of a scuffed-up metal desk. It was covered with papers. Bulging file

folders, ripped-open manila envelopes, newspaper clippings, reports to be filled out in triplicate.

“Detective?” asked a uniformed cop who had fol-

lowed me over.

“It’s okay, Brooks,” King said, still staring at me.

“You can go.”

I noticed then that all the buttons on his phone were lit up.

“You must be busy,” I said.

“Now why would I be busy, Ms. Caruso?”

He indicated a chair, then interlaced his thick fingers so tightly they turned bright red. All the veins in his hands were popping out.

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I sat down and pulled the bottle of Perrier out of my purse with one of the Kleenex tissues.

“You must be parched. Shall I send out for finger

sandwiches?”

“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “This is evidence.”

“What’s evidence?”

“This bottle. It’s got Mitchell Honey’s fingerprints

on it. He lived with Edgar and Jake, and he hated Jake. I think there’s a distinct possibility that he—”

“He who?”

“Mitchell! That he, Mitchell, set this all up to make it look like Jake killed Edgar for his money and then decided to kill himself out of remorse. All you have to do is check these fingerprints against the ones on the suicide note. Then we’ll know for sure.”

He looked distinctly underwhelmed. “Jake Waite

and Mitchell Honey lived in the same house, is that

correct?”

“Yes.”

“There were communal spaces in that house.”

“Yes.”

“Living room, dining room, kitchen, library, den.”

“Yes.”

“Do people in general keep paper in any of those

rooms? Say pads of paper for market lists, or scraps for phone messages or games of tic-tac-toe, or letter paper for letters?”

“Yes.”

“Can we say, then, with any degree of certainty that a piece of paper Jake Waite may have taken from his

house could not at some point in time prior to the writing of the suicide note have been touched by someone

else living in that house, say, Mitchell Honey?”

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Asshole.

“Your evidence is shit.”

“Aren’t you going to dust it for prints anyway? Just

to see?”

“Just to see what? How you muddied the prints with

your grimy tissue paper, with dust from your purse,

with—”

“All right already!”

“Excuse me?”

A secretary had appeared holding a stack of While

You Were Out slips.

“Toss them on top,” he said. “And I’ll take a refill.

Black this time.” He handed her a chipped Lakers mug, then turned back to me. “Was there anything else?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.” I was here. I might as well ask.

“I knew there would be.”

“That painting that Lasarow and Dunphy say they

found all ripped up at Edgar’s house in Palm Springs.

I’m really curious. I want to see it.”

He stood up abruptly. “If it’s evidence, it’s in an evidence locker, where it can be maintained until such

time as it becomes necessary. Nobody’s going to break the chain of custody to satisfy your curiosity.”

“It pertains to my research. And it’s not evidence, it’s trash. That’s why it wound up in the trash.”

“I suggest you take up its status with the lady detectives.”

“Where are they? Are they still in L.A.?”

“I believe they are still here, yes.”

I certainly hoped so. Because a plan of action had just popped into my head, and I didn’t want them interfering.

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As I climbed back into my Camry, I cracked open the

ill-fated bottle of Perrier and took a swig.

Assuming traffic wasn’t too heavy, I’d be in Palm

Springs in no time.

YOU KNOW HOW IT IS in classic Westerns. The sheriff

and his trusty six-shooter are at the city limits, waiting for the guy in the black hat to come riding up. That’s kind of how it was when I pulled onto Palm Canyon

Drive and saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

When Lasarow and Dunphy stepped out of the cop

car, I understood this was no routine traffic stop.

“Welcome to Palm Springs, Ms. Caruso,” said

Lasarow, whipping off her sunglasses. Dunphy was

wearing the kind senior citizens wear. Big old blinders.

She left them on.

“Well, thank you. Lovely weather you’re having.”

The sun felt warm. The air smelled like Creamsicles. I had a sudden desire to take the aerial tramway up to the top of Mount San Jacinto and stick my nose in a Jeffrey pine. They’re supposed to smell like butterscotch. But I went on the offensive instead. “Let’s not waste time

with small talk. I’m concerned about how the case is

going. I have to say I’m disappointed an arrest hasn’t been made.”

Dunphy started to sputter a response, but Lasarow

interrupted. “You think you’re awfully clever, Ms.

Caruso. But you aren’t half as clever as you think. Listen to me very carefully. Whatever you think you’re

looking for, forget about it. You are to stay away from Edgar Edwards’s house. Far, far away. Do you under-250

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stand? You will be arrested for trespassing if we find you there.”

“Who said anything about going to Edgar Edwards’s

house?”

“Why are you here in Palm Springs?”

“Body scrubs, herbal pedicures. Rest and relaxation.

Dry air.”

Dunphy snorted.

“Where are you staying?” asked Lasarow.

My mind raced. “The Wyndham. They really take

care of you at the Wyndham.”

“We’d be happy to escort you.”

“No need.”

“We insist.”

They got back into their car, pulled out in front of

me, and put on the siren. I followed them the quarter mile or so there. I felt like I was part of a presidential motorcade, sort of.

Despite the crowd we attracted at the entrance—

gawker types with nothing better to do—things were

more sedate than they were last time I was in town. No visors.

The valet—not Norman, unfortunately—handed me

my ticket stub. “Don’t forget to get a validation. It’s good for three hours.”

“Oh, she’ll be busy with beauty treatments much

longer than that,” Lasarow interrupted. “You can park her car way, way, way in the back. Ms. Caruso here

won’t be needing it.” She handed him her business

card. “Are you on duty for a while?”

“Yes, ma’am. Until midnight.”

“Excellent. Please give me a call if Ms. Caruso

comes looking for her car. And inform whoever comes

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on duty after you to do the same. She’s a VIP—that’s

Very Important Person—and we want to be extra sure

she gets the protection she needs if she leaves the

premises.”

“I’m on it.”

“And can you get someone out here to help the lady

get checked in and settled in her room?”

“I’ll call Randy. He’s the head bellman. He’ll get her all squared away, make sure the climate control in her room is up to snuff, show her the entertainment options, the works!”

Yeah, they really take care of you at the Wyndham.

31

With the midweek discount, the room only cost me

$159 that I didn’t have.

I hated Detective King.

I hated Detectives Dunphy and Lasarow.

There was nothing good in the minibar.

There was, however, a shower that didn’t take pre-

cisely three and a half minutes to warm up (not that I particularly needed a shower, but what else was I going to do?) and a sign on the bathroom counter that read “If you have forgotten any essentials, please call housekeeping and you will be provided with those items free of charge.” Within minutes, a woman in a neatly

pressed uniform had brought up a blow dryer, brush,

comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, and honey-mint

body lotion for dry, sensitive skin.

I was down but not defeated.

One hour later, smelling like a cough drop, I slipped back into my Jean Paul Gaultier tribal tattoo dress,

which over the years had proven an exemplary pur-

chase. Stretch mesh doesn’t wrinkle.

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I had revised my plan of action.

I took the elevator down to the lobby and exited by

way of the swimming pool, bypassing Lasarow and

Dunphy’s stool pigeon at the valet station. It couldn’t have been easier. I walked up East Tahquitz Canyon

Way, kitten heels clicking, toward Palm Canyon Drive, the town’s main drag.

It was hard to imagine that two thousand years ago,

Palm Springs’s first residents, the ancestors of today’s Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, had enjoyed a rich ceremonial life in the absence of thirty-four places to purchase a smoothie. Former Palm Springs mayor

Sonny Bono was responsible for encouraging eco-

nomic development in the late nineteen eighties and

nineties (and outlawing thong bikinis), but it was actually the advent of air-conditioning in the postwar era that did Palm Springs in. It meant that visitors and residents alike could stay year-round.

Desert Communities Realty was located between a

Nike store and a gallery of southwestern tribal art.

I opened the door and three people descended upon

me.

“Hello!”

“Over here!”

“At your service!”

And they say warm climates kill initiative.

I picked the one with the extraordinary hair. It was

yellow and had been sprayed within an inch of its life.

“I’m Rick Gould,” he said, extending his hand. “And

you are?”

“Patricia Canarski.” My pep squad coach for the

years 1981 to 1983.

“Patricia, a pleasure,” he said, pumping my arm en-

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ergetically. “Have a seat. What can I get you? Coffee?

A soda? I need a Red Bull right around now.”

I tried not to stare at the hair. It reminded me of a hood ornament, something to do with aerodynamic ef-ficiency. “I’m fine.”

“Everyone has a secret desire,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“All right,” I said. “You caught me, Rick.”

“What do you want?”

“The perfect midcentury modern house.”

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing powerful fore-

arms. “I see you, Patricia, serving cocktails poolside, at dusk, spotlights illuminating three kinds of fruit trees and a dwarf oleander.” Without missing a beat, he

slipped me a color setup with a picture of a house for sale at the reduced price of $5.3 million. “I see a trape-zoidal redwood trellis connecting the master bedroom

to the semicircular dining room. I see the subtle desert coloring, the scents, the sounds—but not a peep out of your Miele dishwashers. Oh, yes,” he said, nodding,

“there are two of them. State-of-the-art kitchen. Gran-ite counters, brand-new Wolf dual-fuel range, Sub-

Zero fridge, Viking freestanding refrigerated wine

storage unit. The best! Been on the market for less than a week. I think I might have an offer coming in tomorrow morning, but if you’re serious, we can make a

quick move and preempt these people. It’s a vision

thing. I don’t know if I see them there the way I see you.” He stopped, exhausted.