Gone (35 page)

I
t took six minutes for the jail deputy to return to the phone.

“Yeah, he’s still here.”

“Please have him call me when he gets out. It’s important.”

He asked me for my name and number. Again. Said, “Okay,” but his tone said don’t count on it.

An hour later, I tried again. A different deputy said, “Let me check —
Sturgis? He’s gone.”

I finally reached him in his car.

He said, “Vasquez wasted my time. All of a sudden he remembers Peaty threatened him overtly. ‘I’ll mess you up, dude.’”

“Sounds more like something Vasquez would say.”

“Shuldiner’s gonna push a chronic bullying defense. Anyway, I’m finished with it, finally able to focus on Nora and Meserve. Still no sign they took any commercial flight but Angeline Wasserman’s I.D. of the Range Rover can probably get me some subpoenas for private charter lists. I’m off to file paper. How you feeling?”

“Is the woman the coroner referred to you named Marcia Peaty?”

“Yeah, why?”

“She’s the Dowds’ cousin, as well.” I told him what I learned from Albert Beamish.

“The old man actually had something to say. So much for
my
instincts.”

I said, “The Dowd sibs hire their cousin as a minimum-wage janitor and give him a former laundry room to live in. Tells you something about their character. The fact that none of them thinks to mention it says more. Have a chance to look into the brothers’ private holdings?”

“Not yet, guess I’d better do it. Marcia Peaty never told me she was their cousin as well as Peaty’s.”

“When are you meeting her?”

“An hour. She’s staying at the Roosevelt on Hollywood. I set it up for Musso and Frank, figured I’d at least get a good meal out of it.”

“Family secrets and sand dabs,” I said.

“I was thinking chicken potpie.”

“Sand dabs for me,” I said.

“You’re actually hungry?”

“Starving.”

I parked in the gigantic lot behind Musso and Frank. All that land, developers had to be drooling and I imagined the roar of jackhammers. The restaurant was nearly a century old, impervious to progress and regress. So far, so good.

Milo had staked out a corner booth in the southeast corner of Musso’s larger room. Twenty-foot ceilings painted a grim beige you don’t see anymore, green print hunting scenes on the walls, oak paneling nearly black with age, strong drinks at the bar.

An encyclopedic menu touts what’s now called comfort food but used to be just food. Some items take time and the management warns you not to be impatient. Musso might be the last place in L.A. where you can order a slab of spumoni for dessert.

Cheerful green-jacketed busboys circled the cavernous space and filled water glasses for the half dozen parties enjoying a late lunch. Red-jacketed waiters who made Albert Beamish seem amiable waited for a chance to enforce the no-substitution rule.

A few booths featured couples looking happily adulterous. A table in the middle of the room hosted five white-haired men wearing cashmere sweaters and windbreakers. Familiar but unidentifiable faces; it took a while to figure out why.

A quintet of character actors —
men who’d populated my childhood TV shows without ever getting star billing. All of them looked to be pushing a robust eighty. Lots of elbow-bending and laughter. Maybe the bottom of the funnel wasn’t necessary for grace.

Milo was working on a beer. “Computer lines are finally back up. I just had Sean run the property search and guess what: Nothing for Brad, but Billy owns ten acres in Latigo Canyon. A short drive above where Michaela and Meserve pretended to be victims.”

“Oh, my,” I said. “Just land, no house?”

“That’s how it’s registered.”

“Maybe there are no-code shacks on the property,” I said.

“Believe me, I’m gonna find out.” He looked at his Timex.

“Brad’s the dominant one but he doesn’t own any land of his own?”

“Not even the house in Santa Monica Canyon. That’s Billy’s. So’s the duplex in Beverly Hills.”

“Three parcels each for Billy and Nora,” I said. “Nothing for Brad.”

“Could be one of those tax things, Alex. He takes a salary for managing all the shared buildings, has some IRS reason not to own.”

“On the contrary, property tax is deductible. So are depreciation and expenses on rentals.”

“Spoken like a true land baron.”

I’d made serious money buying and selling properties during a couple of booms. Had opted out of the game because I didn’t like being a landlord, put the profits in bonds and clipped coupons. Not too smart if net worth was your goal. I used to think my goal was serenity. Now, I had no idea.

I said, “Maybe Cousin Marcia can clue us in.”

He tilted his head toward the back of the room. “Yup, being a veteran detective, I’d say that’s her.”

The woman who stood to the right of the bar was six feet tall, forty or so, with curly dishwater hair and a piercing stare. She wore a black crewneck and slacks, carried a cream leather handbag.

Milo said, “She’s checking the premises like a cop,” and waved.

She waved back and approached. The purse was printed with a world-map design. A gold crucifix pendant was her only jewelry. Up close, her hair was wiry, combed in a way that obscured half her right eye. The iris and its mate were bright and searching and gray.

Narrow face, sharp nose, outdoor skin. No resemblance I could see to Reynold Peaty. Or to the Dowds.

“Lieutenant? Marcia Peaty.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Milo introduced me, minus my title.

I pictured Al Beamish scowling.

Marcia Peaty shook our hands and sat. “I remember this place as having great martinis.”

“You from L.A. originally?”

“Raised in Downey. My father was a chiropractor, had an office there and right here in Hollywood, on Edgemont. A good report card used to earn me lunch with him. We always came here, and when no one was looking, he let me try his martinis. I thought they tasted like swimming pool acid but never let on. Wanting to be mature, you know?” She smiled. “Now I like them all by myself.”

A waiter came over and she ordered the cocktail on the rocks, with olives and an onion. “My version of salad.”

The waiter said, “Another beer?”

Milo said, “No, thanks.”

“You?”

The memory of Beamish’s single malt leased space in my palate. “Coke.”

The waiter frowned and left.

Milo said, “What can I do for you, Ms. Peaty?”

“I’m trying to find out what happened to Reyn.”

“How’d you hear about it?”

“I’m a colleague —
used to be.”

“Las Vegas PD?”

“Twelve years,” she said. “Mostly Vice and Auto and then I did some jail duty. I’m working private security now, big company, we handle some of the casinos.”

“No shortage of work in Sin City,” said Milo.

“You guys aren’t exactly sitting around.”

The drinks arrived.

Marcia Peaty tried her martini. “Better than I remembered.”

The waiter asked if we were ready to order.

Chicken potpie, sand dabs, sand dabs.

“Another memory,” said Marcia Peaty. “Can’t get them in Vegas.”

Milo said, “Can’t get ’em too often in L.A., either. Mostly it’s rex sole.”

She looked disappointed. “Cheap substitution?”

“Nope, they’re basically the same —
little flatfish with lots of bones. One lives deeper, no one can tell the difference.”

“You into fishing?”

“I’m into eating.”

“Virtually the same, huh?” said Marcia Peaty. “More like twins than cousins.”

“Cousins can be real different.”

She removed an olive from her drink. Chewed, swallowed. “How I found out about Reyn was I’d been trying to call him for days and no one answered. It’s not like I call him regularly, but one of our great-aunts died and he inherited some money —
no big deal, twelve hundred bucks. When I couldn’t get hold of him, I started calling around —
hospitals, jails. Finally, I learned what happened from your coroner.”

“Calling jails and the crypt,” said Milo. “That’s a specific curiosity.”

Marcia Peaty nodded. “Reyn was high-risk for problems, always had been. I didn’t have any fantasies of turning him into a solid citizen, but every so often I’d feel protective. We grew up together in Downey, he was a few years younger, I’m an only child and he was, too, so kin was in short supply. Once upon a time I thought of him as a little brother.”

I said, “High-risk brother.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat him but he wasn’t a psychopath, just not smart. One of those people who always make bad decisions, you know? Maybe it was genetic. Our fathers were brothers. My dad worked three jobs putting himself through Cleveland Chiropractic, cracked enough backs to go from trailer trash to respectable. Reyn’s dad was an alcoholic loser, never held down a steady job, in and out of jail for penny-ante stuff. Reyn’s mom wasn’t much better.” She stopped. “Big sad story, it’s nothing you guys haven’t heard before.”

Milo said, “How’d you both end up in Nevada?”

“Reyn ran away from home when he was fifteen —
more like walked out and no one cared. I’m not sure what he did for ten years, I know he tried the marines, ended up in the brig, dishonorable discharge. I moved to Vegas because my dad died and my mom liked playing the slots. When you’re an only child, you feel responsible. My husband’s from a family of five kids, big old Mormon clan, totally different world.”

Milo nodded. “Ten years. Reyn showed up when he was twenty-five.”

“At my mother’s condo. Tattooed and drunk and he’d put on about sixty pounds. She wouldn’t let him in. He didn’t argue but he kept hanging around on her street. So Mom called Cop Daughter. When I saw him, I was shocked —
believe it or not, he used to be a nice-looking guy. I gave him some cash, set him up at a motel, told him to sober up and move to another city. The last part he kept.”

“Reno.”

“Next I heard from him was two years later, needing money for bail. I can’t tell you where he was in between.”

“Bad decisions,” I said.

“He’s never been violent,” said Marcia Peaty. “Just another one of those revolving-door dudes.”

Milo said, “His peeper bust could be thought of as scary.”

“Maybe I’m rationalizing but that seemed more like drunk and disorderly. He’d never done anything like that before, hasn’t since —
right?”

“People say he stared a lot. Made ’em uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, he tends —
tended to space out,” said Marcia Peaty. “Like I said, he was no Einstein, couldn’t add three-digit sums. I know it sounds like I’m giving a mope a free pass but he didn’t deserve to get shot by that banger. Can you fill me in on how it happened?”

Milo gave her the barest details of the murder, leaving out the whispering phone calls and Vasquez’s claim of harassment.

She said, “One of those
stupid
things,” and sipped a half inch of martini. “Banger going to pay?”

“He’ll get something.”

“Meaning?”

“Defense is gonna paint your cousin as a bully.”

“Reynold was a booze-soaked loser but he never bullied an ant.”

“He have any kind of love life?”

Marcia Peaty’s hazel eyes narrowed. Speed-trap gaze. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“D.A. wants a clear picture of what he was like. I can’t find evidence of any love life, just a collection of young girl videos.”

Marcia Peaty’s knuckles whitened around her glass. “How young?”

“Barely legal.”

“Why does any of that matter?”

“Reynold worked as a janitor at an acting school. A couple of female students were murdered.”

Marcia Peaty blanched. “Uh-uh. No way. I worked Vice long enough to know a sex criminal when I see one and Reynold wasn’t —
and that ain’t family denial. Trust me on this, you’d best be looking elsewhere.”

“Speaking of family, let’s talk about your other cousins.”

“I mean it,” she said. “Reyn wasn’t wired that way.”

“The other cousins,” said Milo.

“Who?”

“The Dowds. You were at Nora Dowd’s house the other day, told a neighbor you were her cousin.”

Marcia Peaty slid her glass toward her left hand. Then back to her right. Lifting the pick skewering the onion, she twirled, put it back. “That wasn’t strictly true.”

“There’s lenient truth?” said Milo.

“She’s not my cousin. Brad is.”

“He’s her brother.”

Marcia Peaty sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“We’ve got time.”

“L
ike I said, I come from trailer trash,” said Marcia Peaty. “No shame in that, my father, Dr. James Peaty, pulled himself up, it’s even more to his credit.”

“Unlike his brother,” I said.

“Brothers plural,” she said. “And sister. Reyn’s dad, Roald, was the youngest, in and out of prison his whole life, later shot himself. Next up was Millard and between him and my dad was Bernadine. She died after being put away.”

“Put away for what?” said Milo.

“Alcohol-induced craziness. She was a good-looking woman but she used her looks in not the best way.” She pushed her plate away. “I know all this from my mother who hated Dad’s family, so she may have heaped it on a bit. But overall I think she was accurate because Dad never denied it. Mom used to hold up Bernadine as a negative example for me —
don’t do what that ‘immoral wench’ did.”

“What’d Bernadine do?” said Milo.

“Left home at seventeen and went down to Oceanside with a friend, another wild girl named Amelia Stultz. The two of them worked the sailor trade and God knows what else. Bernadine got pregnant by some guy on shore leave who she never saw again. Had a baby boy.”

“Brad,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s how Brad came into this world. When Bernadine got put away he was three or four, got sent to California to live with Amelia Stultz, who’d done a whole lot better, married a navy captain with family money.”

Milo said, “Amelia was an immoral wench but she raised someone else’s kid?”

“The way my mother told it, my uncle Millard blackmailed her, said he’d tell her rich husband about her past if she didn’t ‘take the brat.’”