For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series (10 page)

“
Lunch gave me some
interesting ideas.” Henry answered. “This morning you were saying
that you were going to lunch with the office manager from Coachella
Real Estate, did that turn out to be enlightening?” Wayne hung up
the phone. “The property room said they would bring the keys to my
desk, they need to run up here for something else anyway.” “Lunch
was certainly enlightening.” He didn’t say it, but Henry thought it
had enlightened him in ways that had nothing to do with the
Thornbird investigation.

“
Apparently Thornbird was
selling properties with questionable celebrity connections to
unsuspecting buyers who paid a premium for these places. It
inflated his commission and he made a tidy profit.” “So you think
one of his past clients got mad at him and did it?” Wayne asked.
“Most likely, the question is which one?” Henry picked up a pencil
from Wayne desk and started idly doodling on Wayne’s memo pad. He
found himself drawing little houses with trees and streets
connecting them.

“
You guys looking for a set
of keys?” An overweight sergeant who obviously was no longer on
patrol but probably sat in the property room behind a computer
screen was standing next to Wayne’s desk. “Yeah, are these
Thornbird’s?” Wayne took the keys from the sergeant. “That’s what
the tag says.” The sergeant shook his head as he walked away, how
did these guys get to be detectives anyway?

“
Ok Hank, here you go, let
me know if you find something interesting.” Wayne dropped the keys
into Henry’s hand. “I just need one more thing.” Henry put the keys
in his pocket. “Anything you want is yours my friend.” Wayne
smiled. “An address, I don’t even know where Thornbird’s house is.”
Henry smiled as well.

Henry parked his car at the
curb of Thornbird’s house on West Chino Canyon Road. The homes in
this part of Palm Springs were much different than Henry’s house on
Mel Avenue, he felt as though his house was a cracker box compared
to some of the structures that had been built here. He was on the
north side of Palm Canyon Drive, up against the base of the San
Jacinto Mountains. The view of the Coachella Valley from here was
spectacular; it was as though Palm Springs was at his
feet.

Thornbird’s house appeared
to be as spectacular as its setting. The driveway swooped down the
hill to a large garage that was partially under the house. It was a
signature Palm Spring fifties Modernist design where the roof
angled up and windows soared from the floor to the roofline.
Obviously the real estate business had treated Thornbird better
than the police business had treated Henry. Henry walked up to the
large front door and used the key to open it. When he stepped into
the foyer, the two-story view was straight to the back wall which
was made of large glass panels. It looked as though the pool was
part of the living room while at the same time it disappeared into
the hillside on the other side.

The foyer had a railing from
which Henry looked down onto the living room and what had to be the
kitchen on the right side. There were stairs on the right side of
the balcony going down to the lower level and hallways to either
side which probably led to the bedrooms. The front door closed
behind Henry and he walked down the stairs to the lower level while
he took his time looking all around the room. The living room was
sparsely furnished, but Henry recognized the quality of the tables,
chairs and lamps. Thornbird had not made any trips to Ikea for this
stuff.

He walked around the house,
going down the hallway to the right to find a large open kitchen.
Obviously the kitchen was remodeled recently; there was a lot of
stainless steel and stone here. The stove was a large affair with
at least six burners, but as Henry looked a little closer, it
didn’t appear as though it had seen a lot of use. He opened the
refrigerator which had some milk, eggs and not much else. The
freezer was filled with single serving pizzas and frozen rice
bowls. On the front of the refrigerator was a magnet from Rocky’s
Pizza and the take out phone number was prominently displayed in
large type. On top of the fridge, Henry found a folder from
waiters-to-go. So it was either a microwave meal or pizza delivery
for Thornbird, somehow, though Henry was also single, he didn’t
live that way.

He opened the door that led
into the garage; the light switch was one of those lit up little
red things, he flicked it on and fluorescent tubes lit up the
entire space. The garage was completely finished with white walls
and matching cabinets. It was spotless and other than a broom and a
garbage can in one corner virtually empty except for a brand new
Land Rover that still had paper license plates. Henry tried the
door to the car, but it was locked. He looked through the tinted
windows but couldn’t really see anything inside. He thought of
looking for the keys to the car, but didn’t think searching it
would produce anything. It would be nice to sit in that big leather
seat and look at the burl wood dash and smell that new car smell
though. Oh well, he’d just have to buy his own Land Rover one day –
fat chance he thought - Henry walked back into the kitchen,
flipping off the garage lights on the way back in.

He crossed the living room
and took the stairs back up to the entry foyer and went down the
hallway at the other side of the house. There were two bedrooms
here; the master bedroom was simply furnished with just a bed and a
dresser. The room had high ceilings but it was surprisingly small
for the overall size of the house. The adjoining bathroom had
obviously been remodeled and had a large soaking tub as well as a
steam shower. Henry realized that the bedroom was small because
space had been taken away from it to make the bathroom larger
during the remodel. Just as in the kitchen, there was a lot of
beautiful stone here and the room was bright and functional. Henry
was getting to like Thornbird’s style; the man certainly had not
scrimped on quality when it came to furnishing his home, or buying
his cars.

He opened the medicine
cabinet behind the beveled mirror in the bathroom. On its shelves
was the usual stuff: Toothpaste, deodorant, a can of shaving cream,
some athlete’s foot powder, a couple of toothbrushes, and a tube of
lipstick. Henry picked up the lipstick, examined it and dropped it
into his pocket. So, Charles had been wrong. Thornbird did like
women; he obviously had one as a guest here at some point. Unless,
Henry suddenly thought, what if Charles was right and Thornbird
liked to cross dress. He closed the medicine cabinet and walked
back into the bedroom and opened the closet door. Nothing in here
but slacks, shirts, sport coats and a couple of suits and a great
collection of Hawaiian Aloha shirts. Henry looked at the back of
the closet to see if anything was hidden and there was nothing
unusual.

He closed the closet door
and went back out into the hallway. The second bedroom was
obviously set up as a guest room and looked as though it had never
been used. It was very similar to the guest room in Henry’s house;
it had a bed, nightstand, and an armoire that looked as though it
contained a television. Thornbird had obviously taken care of his
guests, even though it didn’t look like it anyone had ever stayed
here. Like Henry’s house, this guest room had its own attached
bathroom, while it didn’t have the steam shower or soaking tub,
Thornbird had not spared any money here and his guests would have
been very comfortable.

Henry crossed back over the
foyer balcony to check out the rooms on the other side of the
house. He opened the first door to the most well equipped home gym
he had ever seen. One wall was covered with mirrors which seemingly
reflected every workout machine that had ever been built. Henry
could not even identify some of them, he recognized a Nordic Track,
a rowing machine, a treadmill, there was a machine with some kind
of springs that he had seen on TV, and other machines that gleamed
and glowed. There were flat screen televisions on every wall; this
gym must have cost Thornbird a pretty penny.

Henry shook his head at the
lavishness, closed the door and walked down the hall to the next
door. This room was noticeably smaller than the others and very
intimate covered in wood paneling, with thick oriental rugs on the
hardwood floor; it had a very masculine clubby feeling. A large
desk sat under the window, a comfortable black leather desk chair
was behind it. It was obvious that this was the room that Thornbird
had spent the most time in. The back wall had an aerial photograph
of Palm Springs in the forties; it was lit from behind and almost
looked three dimensional. Finally Henry thought he had found
something that would help him when he spotted a computer sitting
under the desk.

Henry sat down in
Thornbird’s big cushy executive chair, reached for the computer and
turned it on. He waited for it to boot up and checked out the
computer station. He admired Thornbird’s choice in equipment, a new
Canon scanner sat on a shelf above an HP photo printer. The machine
itself was a Dell similar to Henry’s but it looked like it was a
newer model. The DSL modem was on a separate shelf, and it looked
like there was a wireless router next to it. Henry looked around to
see if he could find a laptop, he didn’t see one; maybe it was
still in Thornbird’s car. He could certainly imagine Thornbird
sitting in one of the lounges next to the pool researching homes or
looking for celebrities names that he could use in his little
scam.

The machine was done with
its startup routine and waiting for someone to tell it what to do.
Henry grabbed the mouse – it was wireless, he liked that – and
brought up the Internet browser so that he could see what kind of
stuff Thornbird was looking at. His home page came up as the
Coachella Real Estate page, and other than a picture of the office,
a picture of Mr. Thornbird, and a weather banner, nothing there was
interesting.

Henry clicked on the
Favorites button to see what Thornbird had bookmarked on the
machine. There was nothing unusual here, The Palm Springs National
Bank, The Desert Sun newspaper site, Realtor.com, Google, eBay, The
Robb Report, an article on the Palm Springs Living site and
Travelocity. Henry looked at the list; this looked a lot like his
own Favorites list at home. Maybe he should look in his My
Documents folder to see if he kept a file of homes, or maybe a
spreadsheet with some information in it.

He thought back to the
report that Rosie had given him; it was on the front seat of his
car, he was going to go over it carefully tonight. Hopefully it
would tell him which homes had references to celebrities and who
the buyers of these homes were. Henry figured Thornbird had to keep
his own list of properties and their descriptions; after all he
didn’t want to make any mistakes. Henry didn’t think it would work
if Thornbird sold three different homes that were all supposedly
owned by Robert Goulet within the same year.

Henry checked the My
Documents folder, there were numerous letters, and a spreadsheet
with Thornbird’s stock portfolio, Henry opened the spreadsheet and
wished he was doing as well with his investments, but there was
nothing in there that would lead him to a killer. He opened about
twenty or so documents, they were letters to buyers thanking them
for purchasing a home from Thornbird. They were standard form
letters and made no references to price, previous ownership or any
details about the home.

Henry was starting to wonder
if the laptop that had to be around somewhere – why else would
Thornbird have this Wireless Access Point – had some critical
information on it. Maybe he should call Wayne and ask him if the
property room had the machine. Perhaps he should look for it in the
closet or somewhere here in the house. It could be in the Land
Rover in the garage, he wondered if the keys to the car were around
here somewhere. If Henry had a laptop, he would keep it in its bag
right near the door. What good was such a machine if you didn’t
keep it mobile, ready to go.

Henry was frustrated that he
couldn’t find anything. He went back to reading Thornbird’s
Favorites list and went through it one more time. He clicked on the
article at the Palm Springs Living website and started reading.
Palm Springs Living was a glossy magazine that was more advertising
than content in Henry’s opinion. He’d read a few issues and
acknowledged that every once in a while they did print an
interesting story. It looked as though Thornbird bookmarked a story
that the magazine published a little while ago, this one was about
Alexander homes. Henry started reading:

Robert and George
Alexander, a father and son developer team, teamed up with noted
Palm Springs architect William Krisel and started building tracts
of homes in Palm Springs for a decade starting in 1947 that were
based on a single interior design and varied exterior designs that
made them look different from the street. The homes were all
approximately 1,600 square feet but were designed to look larger
since the roofline continued to the carport.

The homes turned their
backs to the street, with the three bedrooms on the street side.
This made the kitchens and living rooms face the backyards in order
to emphasize the outdoor living that the Coachella Valley climate
allowed. Most of these ”Alexander” homes were also built with
swimming pools and appealed to the upper middle class Los Angeles
families in the mid-fifties who wanted a second home away from the
big city.

The article continued to
talk about where the Alexander tracts could be found within the
city. It pointed out that these homes were simply constructed, did
not have much storage space and now needed expensive repairs and
refurbishment from their new owners.