Gone (19 page)

“Learn anything?”

“She wasn’t living large. No food in the fridge, granola bars and canned diet shakes in the pantry. Mydol, Advil, Motrin, Pepto-Bismol, Tums, a little marijuana in her nightstand. No birth control. Not much of a reader, the extent of her library was back issues of
Us
and
People
and
Glamour.
TV but no cable hookup and the phone was dead. My subpoena for her calls is paying off in a few days but like I said her land line was disconnected for nonpayment and I can’t find any cell account. One thing she did have was nice clothes. Not a lot, but nice, she probably spent all her dough on duds. Manager of the restaurant she worked at said she was fine, no problems, didn’t make much of an impression. No guys he remembers seeing her with. Meserve’s shoe-store boss said Meserve was unreliable and could be snotty to customers. Anyway, we’ll see if any interesting prints come up. No signs of violence or struggle, doesn’t look as if she was killed there. How was your weekend?”

“Quiet.”

“Sounds nice.”

I told him about driving up to Latigo, left out the rest of my motor tour and the memories it had evoked.

He said, “No kidding. I was up there myself, early in the morning. Pretty, no?”

“And out of the way.”

“I talked to a few neighbors, including the old guy Michaela scared when she jumped out naked. No one had ever seen her or Meserve there before. Also, I got Mr. Albert Beamish on the phone this morning. Saturday and Sunday he spends at his place in Palm Desert. Sunshine did nothing for his disposition. What he was itching to tell me was he spotted Nora’s Range Rover leaving her house Friday around nine.”

“Right after our meeting at Brad’s house.”

“Maybe Brad advised her to take a vacation. Or she just felt like some down time and didn’t bother to tell her students because she’s an indolent rich girl. I asked Beamish to keep an eye out, thanked him for being observant. He barks back at me, ‘Show your gratitude by doing your job with minimal competence.’”

I laughed. “Did his powers of observation lead to checking the Rover’s occupants?”

“If only. Meserve’s car still hasn’t shown up but if he’s with Nora, the two of them could be using hers and stashing his. As in Nora’s garage, or the one at the PlayHouse. Maybe I can pry a door and take a peek. On a whole other tack, Reynold Peaty is being true to his loser-loner self. Stayed in his apartment all weekend. I gave Sean Sunday off because he’s religious, so it’s possible we missed something. But I did watch the place in the afternoon around four.”

Missing me by a couple of hours. Again.

“Last and possibly least,” he said, “Tori Giacomo’s building has changed ownership twice since she lived there. The original owners were a couple of nonagenarian sisters who passed on naturally. The property went to probate, a speculator from Vegas picked it up cheap then resold to a consortium of businessmen from Koreatown. No records of any old tenants, the aroma of futility fills the air.”

“When are you heading over to Nora’s?”

“Pulling up as we speak…” A car door slammed. “I am now heading for her door. Knock knock—” He raised his voice to an androgynous alto: “Who’s there? Lieutenant Sturgis. Lieutenant Sturgis who?… Hear that, Alex?”

“Hear what?”

“Exactly. Okay, now I’m at the garage… no give, locked… where’s a battering ram when you need it? Tha-tha-that’s all, folks, this has been a presentation of the Useless Travel Channel.”

T
uesday morning, I called Robin, got her machine, hung up.

In my office, a dusty stack of psych journals beckoned. A twenty-page treatise on the eye-blink reflex in schizophrenic Hooded rats lowered
my
eyelids.

I went down to the pond and fed the koi. For fish, they’re smart, have learned to swarm the moment I come down the stairs. It’s nice to be wanted.

Warm air and sloshing water put me under again. The next thing I saw was Milo’s big face crowding my visual field.

Smile as wide as a continent. Scariest clown in the known world. I mumbled some kind of greeting.

“What’s with you?” he said. “Snoozing midday like a codger?”

“What time is it?”

He told me. An hour had vanished. “What’s next, white shoes and dinner at four?”

“Robin naps.”

“Robin has a real job.”

I got to my feet and yawned. The fish sped toward me. Milo hummed the theme from
Jaws.
In his hand was a folder. Unmistakable shade of blue.

“A new one?” I said.

Instead of answering, he climbed back up to the house. I cleared my head and followed.

He sat himself at the kitchen table, napkin tucked into his collar, dishes and utensils set for one. Half a dozen slices of toast, runny Vesuvius of scrambled eggs, sixteen-ounce glass of orange juice, half emptied.

He wiped pulp from his lips. “Love this place. Breakfast served any time.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to rob you blind if such were my intention. Why can’t I convince you to lock your door?”

“No one drops in but you.”

“This isn’t a visit, it’s business.” He stabbed the egg mound, slid the blue folder across the table. A second file separated from the first. “Read ’em and wake.”

A pair of missing persons cases.
Gaidelas, A. Gaidelas, C.

Consecutive case numbers.

“Two more girls?” I said. “Sisters?”

“Read.”

Andrew and Catherine Gaidelas, forty-eight and forty-five, respectively, had disappeared two months after Tori Giacomo.

The couple, married twenty years with no children, were owners of a beauty parlor in Toledo, Ohio, called Locks of Luck. In L.A. for a spring vacation, they’d been staying in Sherman Oaks with Cathy’s sister and brother-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Barry Palmer. On a clear, crisp Tuesday in April the Palmers went to work and the Gaidelases left to go hiking in the Malibu mountains. They hadn’t been seen since.

Identical report in both files. I read Catherine’s. “Doesn’t say where in Malibu.”

“Doesn’t say a lot of things. Keep going.”

The facts were sketchy, with no apparent links to Michaela or Tori. Was I missing something? Then I came to the final paragraph.

Subject C. Gaidelas’s sister, Susan Palmer, reports Cathy and Andy said they were coming out to Calif for vacation but after they got there talked about staying for a while so they could “break into acting.” S. Palmer reports her sister did some “modeling and theater” after high school and used to talk about becoming an actress. A. Gaidelas didn’t have acting experience but everyone back home thought he was a handsome guy who “looked like Dennis Quaid.” S. Palmer reports Andy and
Cathy were tired of running a beauty parlor and didn’t like the cold weather in Ohio. Cathy said she thought they could get some commercials because they looked “all-American.” She also talked about “getting serious and taking acting lessons” and S. Palmer thinks Cathy contacted some acting schools but doesn’t know which ones.

At the rear were two color head-shots.

Cathy and Andy Gaidelas were both fair-haired and blue-eyed with disarming smiles. Cathy had posed in a sleeveless black dress trimmed with rhinestones and matching pendant earrings. Full-faced, with plump shoulders, she had teased platinum hair, a strong chin, a thin, straight nose.

Her husband was a tousled gray-blond, long-faced and craggy in a white button-down shirt that exposed curls of pale chest hair. I supposed his off-kilter grin had a Dennis Quaid charm. Any other similarities to the actor eluded me.

All-American couple well into middle age. They might qualify for Mom and Dad parts on commercials. Pitches for dog food, TV dinners, garbage bags…

I shut the file.

Milo said, “Wannabe stars and now they’re gone. Am I reaching?”

“How’d you come across it?”

“Checking out other MP cases with either an acting connection or a Malibu link. As usual, the computer flagged nothing, but a sheriff’s detective remembered the Gaidelases as would-be thespians. In his mind, no homicide, two adults rabbiting. I reached the brother-in-law, plastic surgeon. The Gaidelases are still missing, family got fed up with the sheriffs, tried the P.I. route, went through three investigators. The first two gave them zilch, the third turned up the fact that the Gaidelases’ rental car had showed up five weeks after the disappearance, sent them a big bill and said that’s all she could do.”

“The sheriffs never thought to tell the family about the car?”

“Ventura police auto-recovery case, sheriffs weren’t even aware of it.”

“Where was it found?”

“Camarillo. One of the parking lots at that big discount shopping outlet they’ve got there.”

“Huge place,” I said.

“You shop there?”

Twice. With Allison. Waiting as she tried on outfits at Ralph Lauren and Versace. “Five weeks and no one noticed the car?”

He said, “For all we know, it was stashed somewhere and moved. The Gaidelases’ rental contract was for two weeks and when they didn’t return it, the company started phoning the number on the form, got no answer. When the company tried to bill for late charges, they found out the Gaidelases’ credit card and cell phone had been canceled the day after they disappeared. Company kept tacking on fees at a usurious rate of interest. The bill compounded seriously and after thirty days, the debt got assigned to a collection agency. The agency found out the Gaidelases’ number in Ohio, got another disconnect. What’s it sound like to you?”

“A skip.”

“Ten points. Anyway, a lien got put on the Gaidelases’ assets, screwed up their credit rating. Private Sleuth Number Three pulled a credit check and back traced. The Palmers say no way the Gaidelases skipped, the two of them were hyped up about making it as actors, loved California.”

“Did the car get checked for evidence?”

He shook his head. “No reason to check a recovered rental. By now, no one knows where it is. Probably put up for auction and shipped to Mexico.”

“The Camarillo outlet’s miles up the coast from Malibu,” I said. “The Gaidelases could’ve gone hiking and followed up with a shopping trip —
duds for auditions. Or they never got out of the hills.”

“Shopping’s unlikely, Alex. The last credit card purchase they made before the account was canceled was lunch at an Italian place in Pacific Palisades the day before. My vote’s for a nature walk turned nasty. Couple of tourists digging the view, never figuring on a predator.”

He pushed eggs around his plate. “Never liked nature. Think it’s worth pursuing?”

“Malibu and a possible acting school link say it needs to be.”

“Dr. Palmer said he’d ask his wife if she was willing to talk. Two minutes later, Dr.
Susan
Palmer’s secretary phones, says the sooner the better. Susan’s got a dental practice in Brentwood. I’m meeting her for coffee in forty minutes. Let me finish my breakfast. Am I expected to wash my own dishes?”

Dr. Susan Palmer was a thinner, plainer version of her sister. More subdued shade of blond in her short, layered hair, true-blue eyes, a frame that looked too meager for her wide face. She wore a ribbed white silk turtleneck, navy slacks, blue suede loafers with golden buckles. Worry lines framed the eyes and tugged at her mouth.

We were in a Mocha Merchant on San Vicente, in the heart of Brentwood. Sleek people ordered complex six-dollar lattes and pastries the size of an infant’s head. Reproductions of antique coffee grinders hung from cedar-paneled walls. Smooth jazz alternated with Peruvian flute on tape-loop. The scorched smell of overdone beans bittered the air.

Susan Palmer had ordered a “half-caf iced Sumatran Vanilla Blendinesse, part soy, part whole milk, make sure it’s whole, not low-fat.”

My request for a “medium coffee” had confused the kid behind the counter.

I scanned the menu board. “Brew of the day, extra-hot, Medio.”

Milo said, “The same.”

The kid looked as if he’d been cheated out of something.

We brought our drinks to the pine table Susan Palmer had selected at the front of the coffeehouse.

Milo said, “Thanks for meeting with us, Doctor.”

Palmer looked down at her iced drink and stirred. “I should thank you —
finally someone’s interested.”

Her smile was abrupt and obligatory. Her hands looked strong. Scrubbed pink, the nails trimmed close and smooth. Dentist’s hands.

“Happy to listen, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant, I’ve come to accept that Cathy and Andy are dead. Maybe that sounds terrible, but after all this time, there’s no other logical explanation. I know about the credit card cancellation and the utilities back in Toledo, but you have to believe me: Cathy and Andy did
not
run away to start a new life. No way would they do that, it’s not in either of their characters.” She sighed. “Cathy would have no
idea
where to run.”

“Why’s that, Doctor?”

“My sister was the
sweetest
person. But unsophisticated.”

“Escape isn’t always sophisticated, Dr. Palmer.”

“Escape would be beyond Cathy.
And
Andy.” More stirring. The beige concoction foamed unpleasantly. “Let me give you some family background. Our parents are retired professors. Dad taught anatomy at the Medical College of Ohio and Mom taught English at the University of Toledo. My brother, Eric, is an M.D.-Ph.D. doing bioengineering research at Rockefeller U., and I’m a cosmetic orthodontist.”

Another sigh. “Cathy barely made it out of high school.”

“Not a student,” I said.

“Cathy had what I now realize were learning disabilities and with that came all the self-esteem issues you’d expect. Back then we just thought she was… not as sharp as the rest of us. We didn’t mistreat her, just the opposite, we
coddled
her. She and I had a great relationship, we never fought. She’s two years older but I always felt like the big sister. Everyone in the family was loving and kind but there was this… Cathy
had
to feel it. Way too much sympathy. When she announced her plans to learn to be a cosmetologist, our parents made such a big deal you’d think she’d gotten into Harvard.”