The Reporter (14 page)

On the surface, at least, this one smelled like burglary. Specifically, a junkie burglary, which they’d seen a lot of. Messy
raking through drawers and closets, random looting, yet leaving obvious targets behind—easy-to-carry, highly salable items
like the
Olympus camera on top of the dresser, the portable TV in the master bath. Pros didn’t do that. Druggies did.

It could’ve been someone who’d known Janet Orson would be away for the night, had broken in to steal, and was surprised by
the housekeeper. There had been nothing at all stolen in the Jack Nathanson murder case, but this house was emptied out. And
they had very different M.O.’s. Nathanson was shot; this woman was hacked to death. There had been no sign of forced entry
at either house, but that didn’t tell the story. Professionals know how to get into a place.
Master
pros know how to get in and out without leaving incriminating tracks.

The detectives were watching Billings now as he bent low over the body, looking up into the dead woman’s eyes with a penlight.
Beverly Hills Homicide detective Ed Mallory came into the hallway. “Mike,” he said, “the Orson woman is just pulling up. Since
she’s late, why don’t you guys go first with her?”

Cabello went to the front door to meet the lady of the house, who had just arrived in a black Porsche. Film studio executive
Alan Bronstein was in the driver’s seat—Mike recognized him from pictures he’d seen. Johnson had made a run over to the nearby
Beverly Hills Hotel and found out from a couple of employees that Mr. Bronstein had apparently spent the night in her bungalow.
Rule him out of
this
one, at least, Cabello thought—if he was with the widow all night, he’s got a tight alibi. Still, if this guy was connected,
as word on the street had it, he’d have had a mechanic do it.

Bronstein opened the passenger door and helped Janet Orson out into the blazing sunlight. She looked disoriented and badly
shaken. As he guided her toward the house, Cabello stood at the front door observing them. Two weeks after Jack Nathanson
was lowered into the ground, his widow and this guy sure looked like a couple to him.

Cabello ushered them inside to where Billings was examining the remains and Johnson was taking notes. The dead woman
was facedown on the floor; on her upper back, encrusted with dried blood that had spilled in thick, gooey puddles onto the
ivory carpeting, were some of the meanest-looking wounds he had ever seen. They appeared to be a series of gashes delivered
with frenzied violence. It didn’t look to Cabello like the work of a professional burglar, or even a drugged-out snatch-’n’-grabber.
It looked like overkill.

“I’m sorry we have to put you through this,” he said to Janet Orson, “but it’s important that you tell us anything you notice
that might help us. Anything that doesn’t look quite right to you.” His sense of irony caught up with him.
Nothing
in this bedlam, he realized, looked quite right.

“Was Mrs. Ricco alone in the house last night?” he asked. He looked from the body on the floor up to Janet Orson, who was
leaning on Bronstein and looking like she was going to be sick. She nodded. He led the two of them into the master bedroom
suite.

“I’d like you to look around,” Cabello said to Janet, indicating the ransacked closets, the rifled drawers, “and tell me what,
if anything, is missing.” Bronstein stayed at her elbow as they moved to her built-in dresser drawers, she to examine, Bronstein
to support her. Jon Johnson had come into the room.

“Now, don’t touch
anything!”
Cabello cautioned them. He produced the collapsible metal pointer he always carried, and used it to gingerly stir some scarves
around in a top drawer. “Indicate to me what you need moved to get a good look,” he said, “and I’ll do the moving.”

“Some of my jewelry is missing; it was in this drawer,” Janet said. “Bracelets, rings, a diamond pendant on a chain, several
pairs of earrings. And the cash—there was about a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred dollars in a little leather box; the box
seems to be gone. I can’t remember everything that was in here….”

She’d explained why most of the house was empty, that
Sotheby’s had sold almost everything, and she had moved into the hotel yesterday. That ruled out a big one, Cabello thought,
the possibility that pros had rolled up here with a huge truck last night and hauled everything off without being noticed.
Pulling that off would have been a minor miracle, but it certainly had been known to happen.

The slow, painstaking inventory went on for a couple of hours, Janet seeming dazed the whole time. When finally it was finished,
after answering more questions, she told the detectives that she’d be at the Beverly Hills Hotel if they needed her. Bungalow
16.

Several hours later, after Billings and his people had rolled out with the housekeeper’s body, after everyone else had come
and gone, and their own initial work at the crime scene was done, Cabello and Johnson sat down on Janet’s love seats in the
near-empty living room to compare notes.

There was no forced entry. The alarm system had not been activated when the police arrived in response to the gardener’s call,
and there was no record at the security company that it had gone off, but Janet Orson said she couldn’t imagine Mrs. Ricco
leaving the system unarmed. They didn’t know yet if the prints they’d turned up were significant; that would take days. None
of the neighbors they’d talked to had heard or seen anything out of the ordinary. Billings had put the time of death at somewhere
between seven and ten last night, but lab tests would pinpoint it closer.

The murder weapon was some sharp, jagged, probably metallic object. Definitely not a knife. Billings said he saw what looked
like paint fragments in the wounds. The lab tests would tell more. What was missing was some cash and jewelry belonging to
Ms. Orson. She thought there might be other things stolen, but she couldn’t be sure. The woman had seemed to be just going
through the motions; she would probably realize that other items were gone when she was up to a more thorough inspection.

Nothing in the victim’s quarters had been touched—Mrs. Ricco had $460 in cash in a ginger jar on her dresser, plus some money
and credit cards in her purse. And though the huge place
looked
like it had been plowed through with a bulldozer, the widow had confirmed, as they moved from room to room, that it was the
auction people who had cleaned the place out. It looked to her that only the master suite had been scoured and looted.

The two outside gates were closed and locked when the gardener had arrived in the morning, but a person could climb over them
because they were not wired for alarms. Johnson had made an appeal to the public with the reporters at the scene earlier for
any information that could help. It was possible that someone might have seen a person or persons climbing over the gates
or the iron grating that surrounded the property, and would come forward.

Neither of the detectives had a definite take on Alan Bronstein, or how he might figure in the picture, beyond the obvious—he
was very much involved with Jack Nathanson’s widow.

“So you wanna be a millionaire?” Cabello asked his partner. “Here’s the million-dollar question: Do we have a connection to
the Nathanson case here?”

“I think so,” Johnson replied. “Do you?”

“Absolutely,” Cabello told him. “But let’s agree that it’s not for publication right now. Here’s what I think,” he said. “I
may be way off base, but I think somebody came here last night
looking
for something.”

M
axi roared out of the parking lot at the Hall of Justice and maneuvered her black Corvette up the Hollywood Freeway, across
Barham Boulevard, and down into Burbank, ignoring the tears streaking over her cheeks. She pulled into her parking spot on
the station’s midway and slumped over the wheel.
Why Carlotta?
she raged inwardly. She was the last person on earth who deserved this.

There I go,
she thought,
looking for justice again.
Jack used to call her an injustice collector. Twelve years in the news business, reporting the most brutal, inhumane, gut-wrenching
acts of violence known to humankind, and she was no more reconciled to it now than on the day she started. Looking into the
rearview mirror, she wiped her eyes and put on her sunglasses. Never let them see you sweat;
definitely
never let them see you cry.

Upstairs in her office, she logged on to her computer to check the wires—she wanted to see what they had on Carlotta’s murder.
Interrupted by a rap on the door, she looked up as producer Wendy Harris opened it and thrust her head inside. “Heads up,
Max—Pete alert!” she whispered, and she was gone.

“Just what I need,” Maxi groaned, as Pete Capra loomed large outside the glass and barged through her door.

“What kinda game are you playing,
Maxi?” he roared, stomping inside. “Cabello says you’re pumping his partner and him for information, saying you’re working
on the Nathanson murder.”

“’Pumping’ is a little strong, Pete,” Maxi said. “Look, I just found out about Carlotta Ricco, Jack’s housekeeper, and she
was very close to me. Can this wait?”

“No, this can’t wait.” Shoving stacks of files aside on Maxi’s small couch, he sat down. “Cabello told me,” Pete said, leveling
his gaze at her, “that
you
have not been ruled out as a suspect in the case. A
murder
suspect, Maxi! What the hell is going on?”

“I didn’t do it, boss,” she said.

Ignoring that, he growled, “Why do they consider you a suspect, Maxi? This station has a right to know.”

“You’ll have to ask
them,”
she answered quietly.

“Listen, Maxine,” he said, getting up and putting his two hands on her desk and looking down at her. “There’s a clause in
your contract that says offending public decency is grounds for termination. I think
murder
just might
offend
some people, don’t you? Look,” he added, softening, “has it occurred to you that I might be able to help?”

Maxi regarded him wearily. “Okay, Pete,” she said. “Help me with Carlotta. Find out what really happened over there, or what
they think happened—they won’t give
me
any information.” Pete could see now that she’d been crying.

“Okay, I’ll call Cabello and see what I can get,” he said. “But after that, you’re going to talk to me.”

Maxi sighed audibly as she watched Pete’s large frame rumble out of her office. She picked up the phone and asked Information
for Arizona State University in Tempe. The switchboard put her through to the dean of students, who assured her that he would
track down Ronald Ricco and have him return her call.

Maxi scanned the Associated Press wires. The story was slugged
NATHANSON DOMESTIC
:

Mrs.
Carlotta Ricco, who had been employed as a housekeeper for the late Academy Award-winning actor Jack Nathanson for 21 years,
was found stabbed to death this morning in the Nathanson home in what appears to be a burglary. The mansion in Beverly Hills
was ransacked, and cash, jewelry and personal belongings of Nathanson’s widow, talent agent Janet Orson, were stolen…

The report went on to detail the crime scene, recap the recent Nathanson murder, profile the actor’s life and career, list
his films, delineate Janet Orson’s career and personal life, characterize Nathanson’s previous wives with thumbnail sketches,
and identify and describe his known survivors, beginning with his only child, Gia Nathanson.
Poor Carlotta,
Maxi thought.
She’s the lead, but she only gets an inch in a three-page story.

She picked up the phone and called Debra. “You heard about Carlotta?” she asked her.

“Yes, it’s all over the news—it’s dreadful. That woman was a saint.”

“They’re calling it burglary. Pete Capra is trying to find out if they think there’s more to it,” Maxi told her.

“Burglary—oh,
sure!”
Debra spat out. “Maxi, has it occurred to you that maybe somebody wanted to get to Janet? I’ve been thinking about it all
morning, and I’m terrified that there’s some nutcase out there. Maybe Meg Davis
isn’t
so harmless. From now on, I’m going to drive Gia to school and pick her up myself every day, and check behind my back. And
you’d better do the same. I don’t have to tell
you
that Jack knew a lot of weird and unsavory people, and as you well know, Maxi, he had a way of pissing off the world.”

“Listen, Debra,” Maxi responded, “I’ll call you back as soon as I find out more about what happened to Carlotta, but meantime,
try not to overreact, okay?”

“Overreact!”
Debra fairly screamed. “Maxi, for God’s sake—
look at what’s happened to my life in the last two weeks! I’m living in hell! Don’t overreact? How
should
I react? Would you like to write me some guidelines?”

“I’m sorry, Debra,” Maxi countered, trying to calm her down. “You’re right. Keep your doors locked, and be cautious. Give
Gia a hug for me. I’ll call you back.” She hung up. Debra was in frantic mode, and Maxi didn’t blame her.

Both her other lines were ringing. The dean at Arizona State was calling to tell her that Ronald Ricco had gotten the news
about his mother’s death, and he was on his way to his dorm now to pack and leave for California. And Pete was calling to
tell her he wanted to see her. And Richard Winningham was tapping on the glass door to her office. She beckoned him inside.
Winningham was a new hire; he had been a crime reporter for the ABC station in New York for fifteen years. Maxi had just a
nodding acquaintance with him. She’d spoken to him only once, on his first day at the station earlier in the month when Pete
brought him around to meet everyone.

“Hi, Richard,” she said, as he came into the office.

“Bad day, huh?” he remarked, lowering his lanky frame onto her rumpled couch. Well over six feet tall, and spare, Richard
Winningham looked like a runner. He had tousled sandy hair that seemed to have a will of its own, 180 degrees from the usual
television newsman hair-sprayed look. Handsome in a rugged way, it looked to Maxi as if he’d had his nose broken a time or
two. And he had a small craggy scar over his left eyebrow.