Cold Heart (3 page)

She was glad when Tiger’s trainer, Alan Pereira, called to say that the dog training was now complete, he would bring Tiger home. Lorraine perked up, even put on some make-up, then laughed at herself. Some weekend date, the return of Tiger.

Tiger was returned, subdued, wearing a collar in rainbow colours, his coat freshly washed, and his teeth cleaned. She had not realized how big he was, or how thick and beautiful his coat. She’d also forgotten his piercing large blue eyes.

‘You got one stubborn son-of-a-bitch here,’ Alan said, and Tiger’s blue eyes were doleful as he first sat, then went through sit, stand, stay and heel. Lorraine was even more impressed when, on the command ‘Bed,’ Tiger slunk to a flower-printed foam basket and lay down.

He remained quiet, head on paws, as she cooked her supper, came like a lamb and sat when she slipped on his lead to take him for his evening walk. He performed his necessary functions, returned, ate his meal and even returned to his bed. It was about twelve o’clock when Lorraine was woken up by something tugging at her sheets. She sat bolt upright to be met with Tiger’s face, and to see his two massive front paws on her bed. ‘Bed. Go to bed
now
.’ He slunk to the door, tail between his legs, nosed it wider open and disappeared.

In the morning she woke to find the dog’s prone body stretched out beside her, with just six inches between them, comatose and snoring gently. Lorraine nudged him and, still with eyes firmly shut, he gave a low growl, his jaw opening a fraction to reveal his cleaned white fangs. She thought of Rooney snoring, and smiled, but then said with great authority, ‘Bed, go to your bed.
Now
.’ The tail thumped, just a fraction. ‘I mean it, you’re pushing your luck. Step out of line, pal, and it’s the big kennel in the sky, you understand me? You’re only on remand, Tiger.’

He was motionless, eyes closed, just a flicker of his tail. ‘Okay, you can stay . . . just for a few minutes, you hear me?’ She lay there, feeling the huge weight of him beside her, then squinted at the bedside clock. It was six o’clock. ‘You know what time it is?’ she said, turning on her side. She went back to sleep and at some point between the hours of six and seven thirty, that six inches closed. When she next opened her eyes, he was sleeping nose to nose with her, one paw gently resting across her chest.

‘I don’t believe this . . .’ But she couldn’t resist rubbing his ears. Cleverly, he never opened his eyes, just gave a long, satisfied sigh.

Before they went out for a morning jog, Lorraine discovered that Tiger had chewed two of her new shot-silk cushions and destroyed his floral bed. On returning, he was not interested in dog food, but devoured her cereal, nuts and fruit with natural yogurt. He followed her into the bedroom, nosed open the shower door, and padded after her while she dressed. He remained at her heels throughout the day, sat close to her on the sofa watching TV, and no amount of loud yells made him return to the living room when she got into bed. He wasn’t a fool, and instead of climbing onto the other side of the king-size bed, he lay down beside it. But he was right next to her in the morning, his breath hot on her neck.

‘Hey, this has got to stop, pal,’ she said, but then blew it by hugging him close, and he knew he had got her. She just could not resist his love, because that was what she felt from the giant animal – love, pure, unadulterated love – and by Monday morning they had, although she hated to admit it, already got into a routine. All his training, with the exception of allowing her to slip on his collar, had gone out of the window. Tiger had moved in on Lorraine as no man would have dared to, and he loved her with a passion. He sat in the passenger seat of the Cherokee, his nose out of the window and his ears blown back by the wind.

Decker was overwhelmed by Tiger, who growled at him, teeth bared, until Lorraine shouted at him, ‘Shut up! This is friend, this is Decker.’

‘Jesus Christ, Mrs Page! He’s enormous. What on earth kind of breed is he?’

‘Mixed, wolfhound and—’

‘Donkey?’

Tiger was not too sure about Decker or the office. He made a slow tour of each room and cocked his leg on one of the ficus trees.

‘You sure as hell aren’t a poodle,’ Decker said warily, but when the telephone rang his attention was distracted. He snatched it up – this was the first call that had come in.

‘Page Investigations,’ he said coolly, as a pair of ice blue eyes stared him out across the desk top. ‘May I have your name? Mrs Page is on the other line right now.’ Decker jotted down ‘Cindy Nathan’, glaring back at Tiger.

‘Who is it?’ Lorraine whispered, from her office doorway.

‘A Cindy Nathan, just wait a second.’ Lorraine watched as Decker flicked the phone onto speaker and held it for one beat, two beats as he grinned and gave her the thumbs-up sign.

‘Cindy Nathan, that is N-A-T . . .’ said a low voice, spelling out the surname.

‘I have that, Ms Nathan,’ said Decker, ‘and may I ask what your enquiry is about?’

‘It’s not an enquiry, I want Lorraine Page – is she there or not?’

Tiger gave a lethal growl, but as Lorraine pointed at him, he shut up.

‘I’m sorry, Ms Nathan, but, as I said, Mrs Page is on the other line. If you could just tell me what your enquiry is. I am Rob Decker, Mrs Page’s secretary.’

‘Really? Well, Rob, as soon as she gets off the other line, get her to call me. It’s urgent.’ She dictated a number, and hung up.

Decker swore, scribbling down the numbers.

Lorraine threw up her hands. ‘Jesus Christ, did you get the number? If that was our first case you just lost it.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘You don’t know who Cindy Nathan is?’

Lorraine was furious. ‘No, I don’t. There’s a lot of people I don’t know, Decker. I had a long time when I didn’t recall my own name. So who is she?’

‘She’s Harry Nathan’s wife.’

‘Really, and who the fuck is he?’ she snapped.

‘The head of Maximedia, the movie studio, though they do a lot of other stuff too. He used to be married to Sonja Sorenson.’

Lorraine leaned on his desk. ‘I never heard of her either.’

Decker rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Lorraine! She’s big in the art world – she owned a gallery on Beverly Drive but moved back to New York after they divorced. Harry Nathan used to do spoofy, goofball comedies –
Killer Bimbos Ate My Neckties
kind of thing, though lately it’s been more like
Ate My Shorts
, if you get what I mean.’ He gave her a meaningful look. ‘Not exactly family entertainment, shall we say? So, you want to call her? Or would you like me to connect you, ma’am?’ He jotted the number on a yellow sticker holding it up on the tip of his forefinger. Lorraine snatched the note and banged her office door closed – only to have to open it again as Tiger threw himself at it barking.

‘Get out,’ she yelled. Then she sat down at her desk. ‘She said she wanted me to call her?’ she called to Decker.

The intercom light flashed. ‘Yes, Mrs Page, and she seemed a trifle hyper. Shall I get Mrs Nathan on the line for you, Mrs Page?’

‘Yes!’

Cindy Nathan was in her silk Hermès sarong, barefoot, clutching the mobile phone and staring into the deep end of the swimming pool. Henry ‘Harry’ Nathan was floating face down in it with a thin trickle of blood still colouring the bright blue water. She heard the police sirens, saw the Hispanic servants hovering by the industrial glass-brick doors with which Harry had replaced the former french windows and leaded diamond panes.

Her phone rang.

‘Cindy Nathan,’ she answered flatly.

‘This is Lorraine Page. You called me and . . . hello? Mrs Nathan?’

Cindy’s voice was barely audible. ‘Yes.’

‘This is Lorraine Page, of Page Investigations.’

‘Are you a detective?’

‘Yes, I run an investigation company.’

‘I want to hire you, because I’m just about to be arrested for my husband’s murder.’

‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’

‘I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him.’ Cindy stared at the body. ‘I need you, please come immediately.’ She reeled off an address, then hung up.

Lorraine stared at the phone, then shouted to Decker, ‘She’s hung up, did you get that?’

‘Yep, I got it. Maybe she read the advert – probably in
Variety.’

Lorraine replaced the receiver and walked into Reception. ‘What did you say?’

‘I ran an advert for you in the
Hollywood Reporter
, plus one in
Screen International, Variety
—’

‘What?’

Decker rummaged around his desk and laid out a fax. ‘I told you Elliot was good. He suggested the wording.’

‘Elliot?’

‘My partner, Adam, but I always call him Elliot, he always calls me Decker. I said we needed him to beef up our adverts, and . . .’

Lorraine’s face had tightened. ‘What?’

‘They only ran yesterday, I told you. I said he was good.’

‘Lemme see,’ she said tightly.

‘Sure, you paid for them.’ Decker passed over the fax.

Lorraine read it in disbelief. It was not really an advert, more a treatment for a TV show: ‘The best, the one agency that caters for the people that need discretion . . .’ highlighted ‘. . . money no object . . .’ highlighted again ‘. . . clients too famous to name,
PRIVATE INVESTIGATION
means what we say –
PRIVATE.
If it’s blackmail, stalkers, drug abuse, underage sex, call us – no case too small, too dangerous, too notorious. We issue a confidentiality contract as standard.’

Her jaw dropped as she read the list of high-profile cases with which Page Investigations was supposed to have been involved. ‘My God, this is disgusting.’

‘Good, though.’

‘But it’s a pack of lies. You can’t say we worked for these people when we didn’t. I’ve never read anything so ridiculous.’

‘Maybe, but you’ll never get anyone to query it – most, as you will see, are dead. We can say we acted for River Phoenix, but who’s to know we didn’t because he can’t . . .’

Lorraine re-read the list of dead movie stars, studio producers, executives, bankers, politicians – even Jackie Onassis’ name appeared. ‘This is a gross distortion of facts,’ she said.

‘Yes, I know, but we got a result. Cindy Nathan.’

Lorraine leaned on his desk. ‘You should have run this by me first. This is illegal, unethical, and we could be sued. These people may be dead, but they’ll have relatives, and lawyers. Pull the adverts this morning, Decker.’

Will do, Mrs Page.’

She turned at her door, serious. ‘You never do this kind of thing again. You have to have my approval for any advert, in fact, for anything going out of this office. Is that clear? I’ll call in when I know more – and give Tiger a walk if I’m not back this afternoon.’

‘Yes, Mrs Page.’

She closed her office door as Tiger threw himself at it.

Lorraine got into the Cherokee and drove rapidly through Century City to take the short cut behind the Beverly Hilton and into Beverly Hills: she smiled, as she always did, as the signs of wealth and ostentation began to increase as steadily as the gradient of Whittier Drive. As the properties grew larger, hedges and trees grew thicker to keep out prying eyes, but behind them could be glimpsed a pick-and-mix assortment of architectural styles. The more traditional bungalows and hacienda-type dwellings rubbed shoulders with mock everything else – Dutch colonial and Cape Cod-style, art-deco, Tudor follies, steel and glass boxes that had been futuristic thirty years ago.

Lorraine knew she must be getting closer to the Nathan property. She was now on the borders of Beverly Hills and Bel Air, and after a quick glance at Decker’s directions, she drew up at the enormous bare metal gates, with Gestapo-style searchlights mounted on the posts. A man was waiting for her. ‘Are you Lorraine Page?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I am.’

He was thin, balding and nervous. ‘I am Cindy Nathan’s lawyer. She has insisted I speak with you, but I want you to know that I have already contacted my own investigation advisers and all this is now in the hands of the police. They have taken Mrs Nathan in for questioning but I’m sure she’ll be released without charge as soon as the facts have been established. Right now, the position is . . . very confusing.’

Lorraine nodded. ‘I’m afraid it is. You see, I don’t know exactly what has happened.’

‘She shot her husband. Harry Nathan is dead. The police are at the poolside now, there’s forensic and paramedics and . . . I can’t allow you to come inside. I have to go to Mrs Nathan.’

Lorraine smiled. ‘Maybe I should come with you, as Mrs Nathan was adamant that I speak with her.’

‘That is impossible. You will not be allowed to see her. As I said, this is police business now.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, there’s nothing you can do here. I will, of course, pay you whatever retainer was agreed, but as I said, the police are taking care of this now. So if you would let me have your fees to date.’

Lorraine hesitated. ‘Do you have a card?’

‘I’m sorry, yes, of course.’ He passed it over. ‘The police are not allowing anyone access to the premises.’

Lorraine looked at his card: Joel H. Feinstein, attorney at law. ‘Fine, I’ll send you my invoice – but just as a matter of interest, is Mrs Nathan being held at the Beverly Hills PD or elsewhere?’

Lorraine drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard, and turned left on Rexford into the bizarre new complex of heavy romanesque arches and colonnades that now housed the Beverly Hills police department. She knew it was unlikely that she would be allowed to see Cindy, even if she announced herself as a private investigator engaged by Mrs Nathan. She was thinking about what moves she could make when an officer she knew, who had done some private work for her on a previous case, walked up to the car parked directly in front of her: James Sharkey, still as fat as ever, still hauling his pants up over his pot belly.

‘Hi, how ya doing?’ She locked her car and headed towards him. For a moment he didn’t recognize her, then gave her a brief nod while digging in his pockets for his car keys. When she asked about Cindy Nathan, he started to unlock his filthy, dented Pontiac. ‘I need ten minutes with her,’ Lorraine said quietly.