Relatively Dead (10 page)

I had another thought. “Since we’re interested in males with the same Y-DNA, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a record of that DNA on an Internet database like the ones you’re in charge of?” Frances agreed. I had an idea. “If you have a DNA testing kit available, I’ll buy it from you and test Jason II.”

Frances had two kits she’d been saving for when she needed them. I purchased both of them.

***

Jason II had returned to Idyllwild that morning. He didn’t know about the third line of the Boyd family descending from Jason I. I wanted to show him the tree charts printed by Frances from the Internet with all three lines, including some dates of birth and death. It was too much information for a phone call. I would have to go to Idyllwild. Idyllwild sounded like an idyllic spot, up in the mountains. Probably how it got its name. Jason had invited me to come and stay with him at his cabin. I wanted to but I had work to do before I went.

Since I was in Orange County, I should take advantage of it. I went for a long but slow run along Huntington Beach, trying to keep my poison oak from itching too much. I also went shopping in one of the huge Orange County malls and bought a new pair of jeans, among other things.

My next order of business was to take care of Rigo. I’d gone to Ault’s house last night instead of spending the evening with him.  He tried to put on a brave front, but I knew he wasn’t happy with my decision. I wanted to make it up to him.

Rigo would get off work in a few hours. I’d be there to meet him. I took the onramp to the 405 freeway north and headed in his direction.

CHAPTER 12

Jason’s description of the Venice apartment building where his grandson had lived and died was right on the money. I stood on the concrete beach walk and gazed up at the top of the four-story structure with its multi-colored bricks, ranging from red to yellow to almost-white, a jigsaw puzzle with a geometric design.

The vertical fire-escape ladder that went from the small fourth-floor balcony to the roof was several feet out from the wall, unshielded and unprotected. Even assuming the metal ladder was safe, and the age of the building belied this—it probably dated from the heyday of Venice: the forties, or even the thirties—an acrophobe like me could never climb it.

I shuddered and lowered my head. Looking almost straight up made me dizzy. People walked or jogged past me, enjoying a cool but sunny March afternoon on another magnificent California beach. A few bicycles whizzed along the separate bike path with spandex-clad riders. From this vantage point it appeared everyone in L.A. was healthy and well exercised.

A young woman went up the steps to the apartment entrance. I quickly crossed the path, snaking among several walkers, and followed her to the door.

“Hi.”

I spoke in my cheeriest voice, and the woman, who was putting her key in the door lock, turned her head slightly and returned the greeting with a slightly puzzled expression.

I smiled and spoke again. “Do you know Evan Hunter?”

The woman, who was about my age, with long red hair and freckles, appeared to think for a moment. “Evan. I believe he lives on the third floor.”

“Oh, good. I’ve been trying to get hold of him, but I don’t have his phone number or anything. Perhaps you could show me his apartment.”

Which meant letting me into the building. Actually, I did know his phone number and apartment number. Jason II gave me that information. I’d tried to call Evan a couple of times, but nobody answered. I didn’t leave a message.

She was beginning to look a bit suspicious. Time for me to launch into my cover story.

“My name is Aiko Murakawa. I’m a reporter for an E-zine—an Internet magazine—and I’d like to do a piece on Jason Boyd. His death was so tragic…”

I watched the eyes of the woman. She reacted to hearing Jason’s name with a look that had a touch of something—grief, sadness?

“Did you know Jason?”

A nod. She opened the door and beckoned me to precede her inside. The hallway we entered was narrow and had a musty smell. Inadequate lighting contributed to an effect of age and slight decay, even though the walls were freshly painted. She led me up the stairs. At a landing she turned and took a good look at me.

“You were at Jason’s memorial service.”

I couldn’t remember
seeing
her
there. But there were so many people… “Yes, I was. I—I didn’t want to do the reporter thing—it would have been inappropriate—but I did listen to the nice things people said about him. He must have been a-a really nice guy.” I was almost stammering. I wasn’t cut out to be undercover.

“He was.” That seemed to satisfy the woman. She continued up two flights of stairs. As we entered the third floor corridor, I asked her name.

“Nelly McIvor.”

I also got her apartment number as we stopped in front of a door. I was prepared for Evan not to be there—five-thirty p.m. on a Friday—but strange music issued forth from the room as Nelly knocked.

Nelly lowered her voice, almost whispering. “Evan is—how shall I say this?—a bit weird. But he’s harmless.”

She must know him better than she’d let on. She went to Jason’s service. She must have some sort of relationship with his roommate. The haunting music continued and reminded me of an instrument like a flute played by a snake charmer. The door remained closed. Nelly knocked again, harder, and called out.

“Evan, you’ve got a visitor. Open the damn door.”

After a few seconds the music stopped. I heard footsteps and then fiddling with door locks. The door finally opened and a head stuck out covered with long, uncombed, blond hair. A smell like burning rope assailed my nostrils. Marijuana? The eyes of the young man didn’t seem to be able to quite focus on me.

Nelly frowned at Evan. “Evan, this is…” She turned to me. “What did you say your name was?”

“Aiko.”

“This is Aiko. She’s a reporter. She wants to do a story on Jason.”

Evan was still trying to focus on me. “You want to do a story on Jason? S’tragedy what happened to him. He was a good roommate.” He stood there, blinking.

Nelly became impatient. “Aren’t you going to let him in?”

“C’mon in.”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alone with him. I glanced at Nelly. Nelly seemed unconcerned. She’d said Evan was harmless. He appeared to be spacey enough so that was probably true. I followed Evan into the apartment.

As I entered, Nelly spoke to me in a low voice. “Come see me when you’re through here.” She told me her apartment number again.

Evan’s apartment was dimly lit. Torn curtains covered the window I saw. There were apparently two rooms in addition to a bathroom. It wasn’t furnished in any traditional sense. Cushions were flung here and there on the bare floor. A surfboard, a wetsuit, and various items of clothing occupied some of the space. The wetsuit was wet. A few posters hung on the walls, apparently of rock stars. A calendar had a photo of a naked girl on it.

At first I felt mild disgust, but then it occurred to me this was a poor man’s art gallery. Lord Binghamton, who I’d met in London, had paintings on his walls, some of which featured naked women. Two of the paintings were of me. The primary difference between those paintings and the calendar was he’d paid a lot more money for the paintings. Men were men, whatever their financial situation. Rich men collected art. Poor men collected soft porn. What was the difference? Rich men were praised for supporting the arts. Poor men were ridiculed for being poor.

The second room we went into had two futons on the floor. This must be the bedroom. Evan collapsed onto one and waved his hand at the other, offering it to me. I again felt apprehension. I’d rather be in the other room. Although the evidence was gone, except for the smell, I gathered this was where he’d been smoking. He was just returning to his lair.

My intuition again told me he was harmless. I sat down on the futon, cross-legged, like Evan, and then realized my mistake. My jeans were too tight against my crotch, still itching from the poison oak. I changed my position, stretching out my legs and placing them on the floor. My malady, if not the fact we were in his parents’ house, had prevented Rigo and me from being intimate the night before. We cuddled but that was all.

Evan was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt worthy of the Grateful Dad and jeans with real holes in the knees, not fake. His eyes were half-closed and he was swaying to the music he’d turned off. I took a few seconds to organize my thoughts before speaking.

“How long have you and Jason been roommates?”

He didn’t respond for a few seconds, and I wondered whether he’d heard me. Then he turned his head in my direction without looking directly at me and spoke slowly, with pauses between sentences, slurring his words slightly.

“About a year. Him and me were buds in college. I got out first and came here. He was more into the academic thing. When he finished he needed a place to crash.” He lifted his hands, palms up, as if to say, “Where else would he go?”

Jason III got his MBA at UCLA, like Kyle had. Jason II told me. I wondered whether they tolerated bad grammar there. At least Evan was talking. “What did Jason do?”

“Oh, you know the beach scene. He surfed—”

“I mean for work.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No.”

“I guess it’s okay then. Don’t tell anybody I told you. He was part of the syndicate.”

The syndicate? It sounded like the mafia. Should I go there? Well, I
was
investigating a murder. “Uh…what does the syndicate do?”

Evan hesitated. “He swore me to secrecy.” He appeared to think, or maybe I was giving him too much credit. After a few seconds he reconnected with reality. “Well, since he’s gone I guess there’s no harm done. It makes investments. With his Master of Big Ass deals, he fit right in. In fact, he helped start it.”

Jason II hadn’t said anything to me about Jason III being involved in investing. “Tell me how it works.”

Evan became more animated. “It’s totally cool. I just wish I had some money so I could join it. You invest your money with them and six months later you get double your money back. Greatest thing since sliced baloney.”

I had talked to several financial advisors about investing my inheritance, but not one mentioned returns like that. “What do they invest in?”

Evan gave a big shrug and spoke in a singsong voice. “Nobody knows and nobody cares. As long as the money rolls in.”

That didn’t sound like a good investment strategy. I asked him a few more questions about the syndicate, but I quickly realized his knowledge of it was very limited. He just kept repeating how great it was. I changed the subject.

“Do you know anybody who’d want to kill Jason? Did he have any enemies?”

“The cops asked me that. I told them everybody loved Jason.”

“There were no disgruntled investors?”

“Told ya. The first investors doubled their money. Would you kill someone who did that?”

“Did you tell the police about the syndicate?”

Evan shook his head slowly back and forth. “Nope. Wasn’t relative.” He tried again. “Wasn’t rel-e-vant. Want a toke or two? I’ve got some good stuff…”

I didn’t want to have anything to do with mind-altering drugs. Because of what I’d been through, I clung to reality. I shook my head.

“Were you at the party last Friday?”

An affirmative nod.

“Did you see…Jason go down the ladder?”

“Naw. Must have happened while I was dancing. There were some neat chicks…”

No help there. Besides, the police asked questions like that.

“Did you see a man at the party with a rash on his hands?”

“Rash?”

“You know, red and ugly looking. Maybe big blisters.” When Evan didn’t respond I said, “Creeping crud.” Still nothing. I unbuttoned a couple of buttons on my shirt and pulled it open so he could see the poison oak on my upper chest. “Something like this.”

That was a mistake. He stared at me, looking directly at me for the first time, as if he expected me to unbutton more buttons. Time to leave. I quickly buttoned up, stood, and walked toward the door.

“Thanks for your time, Evan. That was very helpful. I can let myself out.”

Evan mumbled something but he didn’t get up or look at me again. I exited the apartment and headed for the stairs.

CHAPTER 13

I found Nelly’s apartment on the second floor and knocked on the door. As I waited, the odor reminiscent of older buildings and deterioration not completely covered by the recent paint job, depressed me. I wouldn’t want to live here. Nelly asked who was there and answered the door when I responded. She ushered me inside.

The floor plan was probably the same as Evan’s apartment, but there were no other similarities between the two. This was a different world. The walls were painted a bright yellow and hung with prints of well known artists. The furniture was not expensive but very serviceable. The curtains on the window were open and the afternoon sun streamed in. It even smelled good.

I was amazed. “You’ve made this place look marvelous.” I almost said, “…smell marvelous.”

Nelly smiled. “Thank you. Sit down.” She indicated a sofa with a wood frame. Would you like some iced tea?”