For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series (5 page)

Henry noticed the realtor’s
lockbox still around the hose bib near the entry and said, “You
know, since there were no signs of doors being jimmied or forced, I
think I need to learn a little bit more about this lockbox system,
I’m going to go over to the Coachella Real Estate office right now
to see if they can fill me in.” “I knew that you’d want to talk
with them, I called them this morning and gave the office manager a
heads up.” Wayne said walking down the path towards his car. “I’m
going to head back to the station, give me a call if you need
anything and let me know as soon as you find something.”

“
I’ll do that!” Henry
replied, “Are we still on tomorrow morning at the range for our
weekly practice?” “Wouldn’t miss it!” Wayne replied getting into
his car and starting the engine and it’s all important air
conditioner while leaving the door open to let the hot air out.
“See you tomorrow” he said closing the door and slowly making a
U-turn to head back down Granvia and towards the Palm Springs
police station.

Henry turned back at his car
to take one more look at the house as he thought about his weekly
practice matches with Wayne at the Palm Springs Gun Club’s pistol
range out in the desert. For years he’d carried a big heavy Colt
revolver as a police officer in Eagle River, but when he became
police chief the weapon was mostly in his desk drawer.

He did enjoy shooting the
weapons at the range and shortly after he moved to Palm Springs he
bought a new Glock 17 which was the choice of most police officers
these days. He still had the Colt, the city of Eagle River had
presented it to him when he retired, and usually brought it to the
range, but he decided that now that he was a bit older, he enjoyed
shooting the lighter Glock much more.

Rex Thornbird’s smiling face
was on the For Sale sign in the lawn as Henry looked over the
property one last time. The house wasn’t much to look at from the
outside, he thought, nearly flat roof, neutral paint job that made
it blend in with the other houses on the block, and very
non-descript landscaping that looked like it needed mowing. It was
a shame that a wealthy real estate agent was found in something
that he probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in while he was
alive. He got in his car and made the same U-turn as Wayne had
moments earlier and headed for Thornbird’s office.

Chapter 4

Henry took Sunrise Way as
the quickest way back over to East Palm Canyon drive where
Thornbird’s real estate office was located. He found the office
building quickly near the Palapas Garden Nursery on Palm Canyon
close to the new condominiums that had just been built. The big
sign out front had the Coachella Real Estate logo on it with large
arrow and an “enter here.” There was plenty of parking, the
building was constructed in the parking lot of a shopping center
and he found a shady spot under a Palo Verde tree and locked the
car and headed for the front door.

The heavily tinted glass
door opened onto a tiny lobby filled with several leather
upholstered chairs that had seen a lot of use and a table with
“Homes” magazines. The interior was filled with a maze of cubicle
walls and aisles, and several people popped their heads out above
the cube walls as Henry walked in. It reminded Henry somewhat of
the prairie dogs checking their environment for predators that he
saw on a Discovery channel show once. Obviously Henry was no
predator or threat to anyone and as quickly as they popped their
heads up, they were down again back at doing whatever it was that
they did in their little domains.

The smallest desk Henry had
ever seen was off to the left, on its accompanying chair was a
bored teenage girl with terrible acne who was reading a magazine
and filing her nails while she was talking on the phone.

“
Gotta go, someone’s here.”
She said as she hung up the phone, slammed the magazine shut and
put the fingernail file in the pencil drawer in one smooth motion
that Henry figured she probably practiced numerous times throughout
the day. She looked up at Henry and said “Welcome to Coachella Real
Estate, how can I help you?” with a grin that showed that someone
in her family could obviously afford the payments on the silver
braces that lined her teeth.

“
Good morning, I’m Henry
Wright and I’m here to see your office manager” Henry said
pleasantly, feeling somewhat sorry for the girl stuck in this
little spot. “Oh, is Mrs. Murphy expecting you?” She asked picking
up the phone. “Well, she’s been told that I would be coming to talk
with her so she’s sort of expecting me, but I didn’t make an
appointment” Henry said. “Hold on, I’ll let her know you’re here.
You said Mr. Wright, correct?” “Yes, that’s right, Henry Wright.”
Henry said, heading for one of the chairs to wait for the office
manager’s arrival.

Shortly after the homely
teenager at the little desk had hung up the phone, a small middle
aged woman with bright curly strawberry blond hair wearing a dark
green pantsuit which complimented her deep green eyes came bounding
around the corner of the cubicle wall holding her hand
out.

“
Mr. Wright, I’m Rosie
Murphy, the office manager here at Coachella Real Estate.” Henry
got up from the plastic chair and took the offered hand and said
“It’s nice to meet you, do you have a few moments so that I can
talk with you about Mr. Thornbird?” Mrs. Murphy had a firm
handshake which Henry appreciated; he didn’t care for the limp fish
shake, especially in business people.

Henry let her hand go and
stepped back as she started waving her hands and talking very
animatedly, “Oh yes, poor Rex, I mean Mr. Thornbird, of course. Mr.
Johnson from the police department said you’d be interested in
talking with me, even though I told those other detectives
everything I know. Which isn’t much by the way – say can I get you
something to drink, coffee or ice water or something like that –
Tiffany, have you offered Mr. Wright anything yet?”

The girl, Tiffany, shook
her head while Henry took a breath on Mrs. Murphy’s behalf; it was
amazing how this short petite woman could manage such a stream of
words and activity without seeming to pause in-between for a
breath. “What would you like?” Tiffany, the teenager at the desk
smiled her silvery smile.“Coffee, black, please.” Henry smiled back
at the girl, he felt as though he was going to need an infusion of
caffeine to keep up with Mrs. Murphy. “Bring it in to the
conference room Tiffany” Mrs. Murphy said to the girl as she turned
on her heel and started walking rapidly, almost jogging towards the
back of the office. “This way, Mr. Wright.” She said over her
shoulder as she turned down an aisle into the maze of
cubicles.

Henry was amazed at how
someone that short, she had to be all of five feet tall, even with
those high heels she was wearing, could cover so much ground so
quickly. Henry took several quick large steps across the carpet to
catch up with her. She walked down several aisles in the maze of
cubicles with desks built in and stacks of papers and files on
every desk. Phones were ringing noisily and the office seemed to be
a beehive of activity. He caught up with Mrs. Murphy just as she
disappeared through a conference room door.

Henry stepped into the
conference room and sat down into one of the large leather chairs
that surrounded a huge cherry wood conference table. The room was
not real large; the table filled it and didn’t leave much space to
walk around. The beautiful table and the big black chairs gave the
room an elegant, plush feeling. The walls of the room were lined
with professional photographs of large estates in the Palm Springs
area. The picture directly behind Henry was Bob Hope’s futuristic
looking space ship house that was perched on a hilltop not too far
from the real estate office.

Mrs. Murphy noticed Henry
looking around and said, “The pictures are some of the homes and
estates where our office has been involved in the transaction.”“Oh,
very impressive!” Henry said, “I didn’t realize the Hope estate had
been sold.” Mrs. Murphy looked a little uncomfortable at Henry’s
question and said “Well, it really hasn’t, but we’re hoping that
now that the great man is gone – God rest his soul – that the Hope
family will consider our office when they decide what to do with
the place – and I think it does make for a neat addition to our
picture wall doesn’t it. Oh, where is that Tiffany with your drink
– I’d better check on her.”

As Mrs. Murphy picked up the
phone, there was a knock on the door and Tiffany opened it to place
a large white ceramic mug with the Coachella Real Estate logo on it
filled with hot black coffee on the table. “Thank you dear, that’s
all.” Mrs. Murphy said, as she waved her hand dismissing the
teenager and sentencing her back to the front desk with her phone,
magazine and nail file.

“
Now, Mr. Wright, you are
here to ask me about Rex, Mr. Thornbird I mean, though I cannot
possibly imagine what I can tell you that isn’t already in the
report that the other detectives took, why they had a tape recorder
and everything, they were very interested in what I had to say –
though I must say I don’t know a soul who would want to harm Rrr,
Rrr, Mr. Thornbird. He’s the best agent this office has ever had,
and the nicest man as well.”

Henry picked up his coffee
cup, took a slow sip of the hot coffee and asked, “Can I call you
Rosie, Mrs. Murphy?” “Well of course Mr. Wright, everyone in the
office calls me Rosie, my real name is Rosalyn, but that is so
old-fashioned don’t you agree, Rosie suits me much better, that’s
why my hair is this color as well, this isn’t my natural color you
see, there is a sweet old lady in a small shop on Indian Canyon
that orders this color especially for me, and I had her promise me
not to use it on anyone else”

She stopped the stream of
words when Henry held his hand up to silence her for a moment.
“Please call me Henry, and though I would really like to hear about
your hairdresser some other time, I’d like to spend a few minutes
with you talking about Mr. Thornbird. Please tell me how long you
have known him and what your relationship with him was like and
also some of his past deals – especially what he was currently
working on.”

Henry was a little annoyed
as he caught himself doing the same thing as the woman sitting
across the table from him by blurting out all the questions he
wanted to ask at once. He set his coffee cup down on the table a
little too hard and some of the coffee sloshed out onto the cherry
table top. He took a deep breath to get his control back as he
reached into his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe the coffee up
before it penetrated the beautiful wood of the table. “Rosie, let’s
take this slowly, ok?” He said folding his handkerchief back up.
“How long have you known Mr. Thornbird?”

The small woman with the
bright red hair was obviously startled when Henry put his coffee
cup on the table and looked at him with her large bright green eyes
and said “I met Mr. Thornbird when I came to work here at the
office as a receptionist four years ago.” “Thank you,” Henry said,
standing up slightly to put his handkerchief back in his pocket.
“How well did Mr. Thornbird get along with everyone here in the
office?” Henry asked settling back into the large black leather
chair.

“
Well, everyone looked up to
him of course” Rosie answered, fidgeting with her brightly colored
finger nails while she had her hands clasped together in front of
her. “Mr. Thornbird sold more properties than most of the agents
put together, and his clients were always pleased. Almost always
anyway.” She continued, glancing up at Henry. “A few years ago,
when that terrible woman he was married to took him for nearly
everything he had, he took it in stride and came into the office
every day. He was even here on Saturdays and Sundays, he worked so
hard and so many hours that soon he had everything back and more
than she took.” She said looking up at Henry with sad eyes. “I came
into the office once on a Sunday morning and found him asleep here
in the conference room, he’d been working so hard.”

She shuddered at the memory,
and continued “I felt sorry for him, but he was determined to
regain everything that he had worked so hard for and was very
dedicated to his work and making his clients happy.”

The coffee was cooling down
a bit and Henry took another sip. It was strong and good, the
office obviously had some kind of service and Henry made a mental
note to ask Rosie what brand they used here. It seemed as though
strong coffee was an important element in the real estate business.
“What made Mr. Thornbird so successful?” He asked setting his
coffee cup down.

Rosie sat back from the
table and thought about her answer, “Well, I think Rex had the
ability to spot a trend in the property purchasing business and
capitalize on it.” She said. “What do you mean by trend” Henry
asked. “Well, for example, a number of years ago, architect
properties were very much in fashio here, and Rex listed and sold
more than his share of them. These are houses and estates that were
designed by well known ’50’s architects like Albert Frey and
Richard Dutra here in Palm Springs. Rex sought out all of their
work and marketed them and they sold for a nice premium over what
other properties were commanding at the time.” Rosie said not
without a bit of pride about what the late Rex Thornbird had done
to make money for himself and the Coachella Real Estate
office.

“
Then when he had sold more
architectural houses than anyone knew existed, he turned his
attention to celebrity homes, which were becoming all the rage.”
Rosie continued. “You know he has this uncanny ability to discover
which movie stars and celebrities used to come right here to Palm
Springs to dry out or recover from plastic surgery or even have
illicit affairs.” She suppressed a nervous giggle at this last
part.