Flesh and Blood (29 page)

Perdue ran a finger over his upper lip. The nail was hardened, cross-grained like sandstone but carefully shaped. "I told her it wasn't any of her fault, that things just happen. I lost a boy in Vietnam. Three years I spent fighting Hider's war, and I came back without a scratch. My boy flies over to Vietnam, two weeks later he steps on a mine. Things happen, right?"

"They do, sir," said Milo.

"They do, indeed."

We drove to Crescent Heights, crossed Sunset as the street shifted to Laurel Canyon, and headed for die Valley.

"Woman with a heart condition," said Milo. "I'm gonna kick her off the ledge?"

"What do you think about what she told Perdue?"

"About Shawna being wild?"

"Wild because she had no father in her life," I said. "Wild in a specific way. I think her mother knew of Shawna's attraction to older men. Meaning maybe Shawna had older boyfriends back home."

"Maybe," he said. "But that could also mean that Shawna's story about heading home for the weekend was true. She got dolled up for some Santo Leon Lothario, it went bad, he killed her, dumped her somewhere out in the boonies. That's why she's never been found. If so, there goes the Lauren connection."

"No," I said. "Agnes might've been aware of Shawna's tendencies, but I doubt she knew about a specific hometown boyfriend. If she had, wouldn't she have given his name to the police? Even if the police weren't listening."

"Leo Riley," he said. "SOB still hasn't called back."

"He probably couldn't tell you much anyway. Milo, I think Agnes Yeager knew Shawna's pattern and suspected history had repeated itself in L.A., but she didn't know the specifics."

"Could be. The thing that bothers me is that whoever made Shawna dead really didn't want her to be found. But just the opposite's true of Lauren, and Michelle and Lance. We're talking bodies left out in the open, someone flaunting—maybe wanting to set an example, or scare someone off. Something professional. None of that fits with a sex crime."

"So the motives were different," I said. "Shawna was a lust killing, the others were eliminated to shut them up."

We passed the Laurel Canyon market, and the road took on a steep grade. Milo's foot bore down on the accelerator, and the unmarked shuddered. As the trees zipped by my heart began racing.

"Oh, man."

"What?"

"What if Shawna's death is the secret? Lauren found out somehow, tried to profit from it. Talk about something worth killing for."

He was silent till Mulholland. "How would Lauren find out?"

I had no answer for that. He began pulling on his earlobe. Took out a panatella. Asked me to light it and blew foul smoke out the window."Well," he finally said, "maybe Jane can elucidate for us. Glad you're here." Angry smile. "This might require psychological sensitivity."

We drove up to the gates of the Abbot house just before four P.M. Both the blue Mustang convertible and the big white Cadillac were parked in front, but no one answered Milo's bell push. He tried again. The digital code sounded, four rings. Broken connection.

"Last time it was hooked up to the answering machine," he said. "Cars in the driveway but no one's home?"

"Probably just as we thought," I said. "They went away, took a taxi."

He jabbed the bell a third time, said, "Let's talk to some neighbors," and turned to leave as the third ring sounded. We were nearly at the car when Mel Abbot's voice broke in.

"Please . . . this is not. . . this is. . ."

Then a dial tone.

Milo studied the gate, hiked his trousers, and had taken hold of an iron slat. But I'd already gotten a toehold, and I made it over first.

22

WE RAN TO the front door. I tried the knob. Bolted. Milo pounded, rang the bell. "Mr. Abbot! It's the police!"

No answer. The space to the right of the house was blocked by a ficus hedge. To the left was an azalea-lined flagstone pathway that led to the kitchen door. Also locked, but a ground-floor window was half open.

"Alarm screen's in place," said Milo. "Doesn't look like it's been breached. Wait here." Unholstering his gun, he ran around to the back, returned moments later. "No obvious forced entry, but something's wrong." Replacing the weapon and snapping the holster cover, he flipped the screen on the partially open window, shouted in: "Mr. Abbot? Anyone home?" Silence.

"There's the alarm register," he said, glancing at a side wall. "System's off. Okay, boost me." I cupped my hands, felt the crush of his weight for a second, then he hoisted himself in and disappeared. "You stay put, I'm going to check it out."

I waited, listening to suburban quiet, taking in what I could see of the backyard: a blue corner of swimming pool, teak furniture, old-growth trees screening out the neighboring property, pretty olive green shadows patching a lawn skinned in preparation for fertilizer. . . . Someone had plans for a verdant spring. Eight minutes passed, ten, twelve. Why was he taking so long? Should I return to the car and call for help? What would I tell the dispatcher?

As I thought about it, the kitchen door opened and Milo beckoned me in. Sweat stains had leaked through the armpits of his jacket. His face was white.

"What's going on?" I said.

Instead of answering he showed me his back and led me through the kitchen. Blue granite counters were bare but for a carton of orange juice. We hurried through a floral-papered breakfast nook, a butler's pantry, the dining room, past all that art, and Milo ran past the elevator into the living room, where Melville Abbot's trophies were gloomed by blackout drapes.

He vaulted up the stairs, and I followed.

When I was halfway up, I heard the whimpering.

Abbot sat propped in bed, cushioned by a blue velvet bed husband, hairless skull reflecting light from an overhead chandelier, slack lips shellacked with drool.

The room was huge, stale, someone's vision of Versailles. Gold plush carpeting, mustard-and-crimson tapestry curtains tied back elaborately and topped by fringed valances, French Provincial replica furniture arranged haphazardly.

The bed was king-sized and seemed to swallow Abbot. The bed husband had slipped low against a massive swirl of rococo headboard of tufted yellow silk. Lots of satin pillows on the bed, several more on the carpet. The chandelier was Murano glass, a snarl of yellow tendrils crowned by multicolored glass birds. A small Picasso hung askew above the crest of the headboard, next to a dark landscape that could've been a Corot. A folded wheelchair filled one corner.

The straggling white puffs of Melville Abbot's hair had been battened down by sweat. The old man's eyes were vacant and frightened, lashes encrusted with greenish scum. He wore maroon silk pajamas with white piping and LAPD-issue handcuffs around his wrists.

To his left, a few feet from the bed, red-brown splotches Rorschached the gold carpet. The largest stain spread from under Jane Abbot's body.

She lay on her left side, left arm stretched forward, legs drawn upward,ash hair loose and fanned across the thick pile. A silver peignoir had ridden up, exposing still-sleek legs, a sliver of buttock swelling beneath black panties. Bare feet. Pink toenails. Graying flesh, green-tinged, purplish suggestions of lividity at ankles and wrists and thighs, as dead blood pooled internally.

Her eyes were half open, filmed, the lids swollen and blueing. Her mouth gaped, and her tongue was a gray garden slug curling inward. One ruby-crusted hole blemished her left cheek; a second punctuated the hairline of her left temple.

Milo pointed to the floor next to the nightstand. A gun, not unlike his 9 mm, near the draperies. He drew the clip from his trouser pocket, put it back.

"When I got here, he was holding it."

Abbot gave no indication of hearing. Or comprehension. Saliva trickled down his chin, and he mumbled.

"What are you saying, sir?" said Milo, drawing closer to the bed.

Abbot's eyes rolled back, reappeared, focused on nothing.

Milo turned to me. "I walk in and he points the damn thing at me. I almost shot him, but when he saw me he let go of it. I kept trying to find out what happened, but all he does is babble. From the looks of her, she's been dead several hours. I'm not pushing him without a lawyer present. It's Van Nuys's case. I called them. We should have company soon enough."

Mel Abbot groaned.

"Just hold on, sir."

The old man's arms shot out. He shook his wrists, and the cuffs jangled. "Hurts."

"They're as loose as they can be, sir."

The chocolate eyes turned black. "I'm Mr. Abbot. Who the hell arc you?"

"Detective Sturgis."

Abbot stared at him. "Sherlock Bones?"

"Something like that, sir."

"Constabulary," said Abbot. "State trooper stops a man on the highway—have you heard this one?"

"Probably," said Milo.

"Aw," said Abbot. "You're no fun."

23

MILO SCANNED THE bedroom as we waited. I could see nothing but tragedy, but his trained eye located a bullet hole on the wall facing the bed, just to the right of the wheelchair. He drew a chalk outline around the puncture.

Mel Abbot continued to hunch stuporously in the bed, cuffed hands inert. Milo wiped his chin a couple of times. Each time Abbot yanked his face away, like a baby repelling spinach.

Finally, the howl of sirens. Three black-and-whites on Code Two, a Mutt-and-Jeff detective duo from Van Nuys Division named Ruiz and Gallardo, a squadron of cheerful, bantering paramedics for Mel Abbot.

I stood on the landing and watched the EMTs set up their mobile stretcher. Milo and the detectives had moved out of the bedroom, out of the old man's earshot, talking technical. Sidelong glances at the old man. A moist slick of snot mustached Abbot's upper lip. Jane's corpse was within his line of vision, but he made no attempt to look at her. A paramedic came out and asked the detectives where to take him. All three cops agreed on the inevitable, the prison ward at County General. The short D, Ruiz, muttered, "Love that drive to East L.A."

"No place like home, ese,n said Gallardo. He and his partner were in their thirties, solidly built, with thick black hair, perfectly edged and combed straight back. He was around six-two, Ruiz, no more than five-eight. But for the height differential they could have been twins, and Ibegan thinking of them as outgrowths of some Mendelian experiment: short detectives, long detectives. . . . Anything to take my mind off what had happened.

It didn't work—my head wouldn't shake off images of Jane Abbot's final moments. Had she known what was coming, or had the flash of the gun been sensation without comprehension?

Mother and daughter, gone.

A family, gone.

Not a happy family, but one that had cared enough, years ago, to seek help. . . .

A restraint strap unbuckled with a snap, and the EMTs advanced on Abbot. He began to cry but offered no resistance as they eased him onto the stretcher. Then he gazed down at the body and screamed, and waxy arms began striking out. One paramedic said, "Now, come on," in a bored voice. Snap snap. The paramedics went about their work, speedy as a pit crew, and Abbot was immobilized.

I ran downstairs, retraced the path through the house and out the kitchen door to the flagstone pathway. The sun was relenting, and the lowest quadrant of the sky was striped persimmon. A few neighbors had come out to stare, and when they saw me they edged closer to the gates. A uniform held them back. Someone pointed, and I ducked out of view, stayed close to the house, which was where Milo found me.

"Taking the air?"

"Breathing seemed a good idea," I said.

"You missed the fun. Abbot managed to slip an arm out and grab hold of one of the EMTs' hair. They shot him up with tranquilizer."

"Poor guy."

"Pathetic but dangerous."

"You really think he did it?"

"You don't?" He slapped his hands on his hips. "I'm not saying it was premeditated, but hell, yeah. He was holding the gun, and that hole in the wall fits with a shot fired from the bed. My best guess is it happened last night. They probably had the gun in a nightstand, somehow he found it, was using it as a teddy bear, Jane entered the bedroom, freaked him out, and boom."

"Suburban security goes bad."

"We see it all the time, Alex. Usually with kids. Which is what Abbotreally is, right? The nightstand drawer's within arm's reach. There's another gun in there—older revolver, a thirty-eight, unloaded. So maybe Jane was being careful. But not careful enough. She forgot about the clip in the gun."

"Tragic accident," I said. "You're the detective."

He stared at me. "Spit it out."

"Jane was an experienced caretaker. I can't see her letting him get near a gun."

"She had her hands full, Alex. People get careless. Perfectly competent parents turn their backs while Snookums toddles over to the pool."

He stared down the length of the house. "There're no signs of forced entry, there was a box of loose jewelry in Jane's dresser and a nice fat safe in the bedroom closet, combination-locked. Not to mention all those paintings. Ruiz and Gallardo's first order of business will be to see if the gun was registered. Solid citizens like them aren't likely to own an illegal piece. If it was theirs, that pretty much clinches it."

He took baby steps, turned in a small, tight circle, hitched his trousers. "Least I know why she didn't return my calls."

"You're right about the art," I said. "If it's real, it's worth a fortune. One hell of an estate. One hell of a community property. I wonder who inherits."

He rotated, faced me, eyes half closed but alert, like those of a resting guard dog. "And the point is ..."

"Mel Abbot's only child died ten years ago, Jane's, just a few days ago. Now Mel will be declared incompetent and someone else will be placed in charge of all the assets. Probably a court-appointed conservator. My guess is relatives will start lining up. I wonder who's next in line, from a legal standpoint."

"Some cousin from Iowa. So what?"

"Maybe not," I said. "Jane mentioned a prenup, but that could've applied only to divorce, not death. If Mel's will signed everything over to Jane, that would've put Lauren in place to inherit. But with Lauren dead, her closest living relative could step up to the plate. And look who just called you and asked about Lauren's finances."