Deception: An Alex Delaware Novel (16 page)

Franck blinked. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Why advertise the opposition?"

The young man's smile was wide and toothy. "It's an Ivy thing. Flaunting your own school is pretentious."

"So when some jerk cuts me off in traffic and he's got a YooHoo University decal on the rear window of his Mercedes he probably didn't go to YooHoo?"

"If he's a jerk, he probably did," said Franck. "Can I assume you have no idea who killed Elise?"

"I never said she was killed, Trey."

"You're homicide detectives."

"Sometimes we investigate suicides."

"You think
that's
what it was?"

"You see that as possible, Trey?"

"What do you mean?"

"Any signs of depression on Elise's part?"

"No."

"Just like that," said Milo, snapping his fingers. "No hemming and hawing."

"I never saw any depression. Not in the clinical sense."

"Meaning?"

"She had her moods," said Franck. "Like anyone. Mostly when I saw her, she was in fine spirits." He picked at a cuticle. "I probably shouldn't get into this, but I feel duty-bound. Not that I think it's necessarily relevant. But..."

Pick pick.

"There's a kid named Martin Mendoza. He's a senior at Prep and Elise tutored him. But he didn't come to her in the usual way, Prep assigned him to Elise."

"And?"

"And there were problems."

"What kinds of problems?"

"Anger management," said Franck. "He didn't want to be there--at Prep, or working with Elise--and he let her know. He came in as a junior, recruited to pitch for the baseball team, he'd been a star in public school. Early in the season, he got injured, couldn't play anymore, but Prep had already contracted with him for the full two years."

"Contracted?" said Milo. "Sounds like the major leagues."

"In a sense it is, Lieutenant. When a prize athlete from the inner city fits a niche at Prep, Prep draws up a written agreement. If it works out, everyone gets their money's worth. If it doesn't and the student has significant academic issues to begin with--which is fairly typical--the problem generally fixes itself. In a Darwinian sense."

"The student drops out because he can't handle the workload."

"It's a high-pressure environment to begin with," said Franck. "Unless you're academically oriented, you're likely to be miserable."

"Blow your knee, back to Urban Sprawl High."

"Well put, Lieutenant."

"Martin Mendoza didn't oblige?"

"From what Elise told me, transferring to Prep wasn't his choice, it was his parents'. His father works as a waiter at a country club, that's where he met an alum who hooked him up. But overcoming historical deficits is tough."

"What's a historical deficit, Trey?"

"Public school," said Franck. "Martin had some monumental catching up, Prep hired Elise to help him."

"Nice of them, even though he wasn't pitching anymore."

"Guess so."

"You don't think it was altruism."

"I think by seventeen a kid should have some control over his life and when you neglect that, you're playing with fire. Martin got pretty aggressive with Elise. It upset her."

"Physically aggressive?"

"Verbally, but it bothered her enough to tell me about it."

"Did she ask you to protect her from Mendoza?"

"Nothing like that, she just wanted to talk about it. Normally, I wouldn't be thinking about it. But now that she's... I have to tell you, I'm not comfortable talking out of school."

"So to speak," said Milo.

Silence.

"So Elise was scared of Mendoza."

"More like... I guess she was, Lieutenant. She tried to do her job but he kept missing appointments and messing up her schedule, never followed through on homework assignments, went out of his way to be uncooperative. Elise finally told him he was wasting her time and Prep's money and not doing himself a favor. He got in her face, started screaming. Elise said she backed away, was ready to call 911. But he just cursed and ran out and she never saw him again."

"When did this happen?"

"A month or so ago. When's the funeral?"

"At this point, that's unclear." Milo produced his pad, flipped it open, scanned. "Arnie Joseph's."

"Pardon?"

"It's a bar on Van Nuys Boulevard. Elise used to drink there occasionally but you know that."

"I don't drink." Franck's finger worked a cuticle. A seam of blood appeared and he stanched it with a thumb.

Another look at the greasy ceiling.

"You're saying you've never been to Arnie Joseph's."

Franck licked his lips. "I haven't."

"But you have been near Arnie Joseph's, that's how we found you, Trey. You walked Elise over there, then the two of you shared a bye-bye kiss. Hot and heavy was the way it was described to us."

Trey Franck blurted, "Oh, God." Plopping back on his bed, he lay on his back, closed his eyes, breathed fast.

"Anything else you want to tell us, Trey?"

Franck mumbled something.

"I didn't catch that, Trey."

"We did it."

"Did what?"

Franck propped up on his elbows, stared past us. "We made love. Not regularly, once in a while. Nothing emotional, for fun."

"Fun," said Milo.

"Stress relief." Franck swiveled and met our eyes. Held the gaze defiantly. "Dealing with idiots, hour after interminable hour. It helped us forget."

CHAPTER
19

Trey Franck sat up and spread his shoulders.

Admitting his affair with Elise Freeman had enlarged him.

Milo said, "When did you and Elise begin your stress-reduction program?"

"Don't worry, I was over eighteen."

"I'm not worried, son, I'm looking for details."

"I still don't see why
anything
I've done is relevant."

Milo squatted and put his big face close to Franck's. Franck edged back.

"When we investigate a nasty death, Trey, we begin by looking at people close to the deceased, because statistically, most nasty deaths are perpetrated by someone the victim knows. When we ran Elise's phone records, you popped up as a frequent contact. One thing in your favor is that you didn't lie about not speaking to her in two weeks. The record backs that up. But that doesn't mean we're not interested in learning more about you."

"Statistics," said Franck, "are group measurements intended for samples, not individuals. They possess absolutely no validity when applied to individuals."

"Thanks for the math lesson, son, but right now you're what we call a person of interest and if you want to stop being a person of interest, you'll just answer the questions."

"I just don't see why my sex life is--"

"Here's a theoretical situation, Trey: What if you and Elise had a hot-and-heavy romance going and she broke it off? Jealousy and resentment are great motives."

"It may be theoretical but it's definitely not empirical," said Franck. "Elise and I got together occasionally for recreational sex and no one broke anything off. If you're looking at jealousy, pay attention to a loser who had a serious thing for her named Sal Fidella. Since you've got phone records, I'm sure you've seen his number."

"You know Mr. Fidella."

"No. I know
of
him. Elise said she'd dated him on and off, he was getting annoying."

"Annoying in what way?"

"Wanting to keep getting with her but she was over it. She thought he was a loser, always talking to her about get-rich-quick schemes."

"Such as?"

"She didn't elaborate and I didn't ask. It wasn't anything we dwelled upon."

"Did Elise ever say Fidella had actually gone through with any of his schemes?"

Franck smirked. "So you already suspect him."

"Don't second-guess us, son."

"She never got specific beyond saying he was all heat, no light."

"She ever say he was violent?"

"Unfortunately, she never mentioned that."

"Unfortunately?"

"You'd concentrate on him and I wouldn't have to talk about my sex life."

"You've seen a photo of Elise and Fidella in her living room?"

"Okay. So?"

"That didn't make you think?"

"About what?"

"She's over him but hangs on to his picture?"

Franck's knees pressed together. "I suppose that was incongruous. But so what? I wasn't romantically attached to Elise."

"Obviously," said Milo. "She kept no picture of you."

Silence.

"Unless she did and you removed it after she died."

"No way, I haven't been to her house in months! You keep coming back to total irrelevancies--"

Milo said, "Of course, there could be another reason--another theoretical. Elise had students coming in and out. Parents, too, sometimes. Flaunting a nonromantic, recreational relationship with a former student wouldn't do much for business."

"I was
never
her student."

"You were eighteen when you met her."

"That made me legal."

"We're not talking legal, Trey, we're talking appropriate."

Silence.

Milo said, "How soon after you started working for Elise did it get personal?"

"I don't recall."

"Guy like you with memory problems?"

"My memory's fine," said Franck. "I never made note of the precise date because I never thought I'd have to explain myself to--"

"Was it soon after, or did it take a while to develop?"

Franck shook his head. "This is humiliating."

"So was Elise's death."

The young man lowered his head.

"How soon, Trey?"

"Not weeks. Months." Franck looked up. "You want the voyeuristic details? Fine. One night I went over to Elise's house to collect my money. She was wearing a tank top and shorts. White top, blue shorts. All the other times I'd seen her, she'd dressed in dresses to the knee or slacks, her hair tied back, no makeup. That night, her hair was loose, she wore makeup. She had on perfume. She told me I was doing a great job, invited me to sit down, have a drink--not alcohol, I don't drink alcohol, never have, she meant a soft drink, that's what she was having. We sat down together on the couch, talked." His eyes moved to one side, drifted back, cloudy with reminiscence. "It just happened."

"And kept happening," said Milo. "We're talking four years."

"On and off. Have you heard the expression
booty-call
?"

Milo smiled. "Yes, son. Who booty-called who?"

"She always called me. The last one was two weeks ago--the phone call you saw, but that time I didn't go over."

"Why not?"

"Other obligations." Franck scratched a corner of his mouth. "I'd grown ambivalent about the relationship. For one thing I came to learn that Elise has a drinking problem. Nothing chronic, but she binges. My mother has a problem in that area and I've seen how it's affected her. Secondly, I prefer to date women my own age. I'm not claiming to be some kind of big-time player, but right now there's someone I'm involved with. She knows nothing about Elise and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm deeply sorry Elise is dead, I couldn't feel worse, she did a lot for me. But I'm really nervous about my personal life going public. That would be hell."

"No reason for your girlfriend to know, unless she's your alibi."

Franck's eyes widened. "I need an alibi?"

"Let me give you some--I guess you'd call them parameters--for the period of Elise's death."

As Milo outlined the time frame, Franck's shoulders loosened almost immediately. His grin was Christmas-morning bright, a kid in a room full of presents.

"During that entire time, I wasn't even in L.A., I was in Palo Alto for a series of research meetings with Professor Milbank--Professor Seth Milbank. He's conducting research at Stanford that might conceivably relate to mine. Professor Moon--my advisor, Professor Norman Moon--thought it would be a good idea for the three of us to sit down face-to-face and discuss possibilities. Professor Moon has travel money on his grant so we flew up. Feel free to check my plane tickets and my hotel reservation. I'd show you restaurant receipts--we ate out every meal--but Professor Moon paid for everything with his business card."

Milo said, "Tickets and hotel sound like a good start, Trey."

The young man slid off the sofa bed, retrieved his laptop from the floor, held the computer like a glockenspiel, and typed while standing.

Seconds later he showed us an online travel site screen.

Four-day stay at the Palo Alto Sojourner Inn, incoming and outgoing flights on Southwest.

"Satisfied?" said Franck.

"Four days," said Milo. "That's a lot of meetings."

"We made a side trip to Berkeley to confer with Professor Rosen."

Milo phoned the hotel, spoke with the desk, hung up. "Looks like you're cleared, Trey. Unless you've figured out how to be in two places simultaneously."

"Not yet, but maybe one of these days," said Franck.

"You're working on that?"

"Wait long enough, Lieutenant, and everything happens."

We left the shabby building, nearly collided with a helmeted student speeding up the footpath on a skateboard.

"Hey, watch it!"

Milo said, "Put more time into your physics homework."

"Huh?"

"Plotting trajectories, pal. Yours sucked."

The kid stared, waited until Milo's back was turned before flipping us off. Back in the car, I said, "Fish-and-chips?"

"Something's off with Franck but I can't pinpoint it."

"There's a minuscule speech delay," I said. "Like a machine processing."

"That's it. Reminds me of a witness on the stand who's been coached. A four-year affair leaves plenty of room for rage. Too bad he's alibied tight."

"You're not buying the booty-call defense?"

"That's what it was to Elise. But young guy, experienced older woman? I'll bet Franck was a virgin when she seduced him and he grew a lot more emotionally involved than he's letting on."

The door to Franck's building opened. Franck stepped out and walked straight toward us.

"This should be interesting," said Milo, starting to roll down the window.