Cold Blood (5 page)

“They even got an English butler, I’m not kiddin’, and a maid. They left me in the hallway awhile until Phyllis came down. It’s^normous, the hall, like you could roller-skate around it. They got some

“ash, tons of it, got paintings worth millions, I’d say. These old movie stars sure know how to live in style.”

Lorraine poured Rosie a coffee.

“Did Phyllis say anything about us working for them?”

“Nah, she just took the envelope, thanked me for coming around and said she’d see me at the meeting day after tomorrow. Never even offered me so much as a glass of water. To be honest she seemed edgy, know what I mean? Kept looking over her shoulder… . Maybe we should have sent it by messenger.”

“Elizabeth Seal, I remember her,”

Rooney said, closing his eyes.

“She’s originally from New Orleans, starred in a movie called Swamp somethin’ or other, while back. She was real sexy… .”

Rosie nodded and began to list Elizabeth Seal’s later films. Lorraine sat at her own desk with her coffee. Rooney frowned as he listened to Rosie, then nodded his head.

“Yeah, yeah, I remember now, she was all over the papers a while back, somethin’ about a girlkidnapped, wasn’t she?”

Rooney was pinching his nose, trying to recall what he’d read about the case.

“I said it made all the papers, didn’t I?”

Rosie was nodding and beaming.

“Her daughter, her body was never found?”

Rooney pondered.

“Right, and they are still trying to find her. But it wasn’t here in Hollywood, it was in New Orleans. She disappeared there, didn’t she?”

Rosie pointed.

“Yes, disappeared into thin air. She went there with her parents during Mardi Gras. She goes out and is never seen again.”

Rooney chewed his lip and then looked at Lorraine.

“I think a friend of mine, Jim Sharkey, handled the case here … all comin’ back to me.”

“Lorraine didn’t even know who Elizabeth Seal is,”

Rosie interjected.

The phone rang, making Rooney jump as he was sitting on the edge , of the desk closest to it. Rosie answered, feeling very superior by now.

“Page Investigations.”

She then commenced a waving pantomime to i Lorraine, gesturing toward her desk and her phone.

“Would you hold one moment and I will see if Mrs. Page is free to take your call.”

Rosie covered the phone with her hand and took a deep breath.

“Elizabeth Caley, line one!”

CHAPTER

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I
Lorraine checked her appearance. Her tan shoes looked scuffed,

LI so she kicked them off and Rosie was ready with polish and a brush. Rooney would drive her to the CalejAmse, not only saving money on a cab but, as an ex-captain of the Pasadewa Homicide Squad, his presence might add extra weight to Page Investigations Agency.

Rooney had jumped at the opportunity of filling up his empty days and had tracked down a few back issues of the papers that had run the story about the missing Caley girl. He had also used his police contacts to try to get further details from the officers who had been overseeing the case. Jim Sharkey, the officer heading the LA side of the investigation, had not been very helpful; Rooney reckoned he’d have to take him out and give him a night on the town to gain any decent information. But Rooney did have something regarding the private investigators who had already been hiredand it was an impressive list. Lorraine adamantly refused to allow him to begin digging up anything from the agencies because she felt it might all be a waste of time. They didn’t have finances to fritter away; they didn’t have finances, period.

She gave herself one final checkup. Rosie finished polishing her shoes, and then they heard the blast of a car horn from the street as Rooney arrived to collect Lorraine.

He had made an effort: his shirt looked as if it had come straight out of the wrapping paper, with two large creases adorning the front, and his tie had flakes of cigarette ash but not the usual breakfast stains, Lorraine was relieved to note.

“Rosie not coming with us?”

he asked as he pushed open the passenger door of his Hyundai.

“Nope, no need to overplay it. Just you and me.”

“Fine. I drove by their place last night, impressive. It’s a mile past the Bel Air Hotel. In fact, it’s so impressive I almost hadda double-check it wasn’t a hotel.”

“So, how you reckon we play it?”

Lorraine asked.

Rooney drove carefully, wearing his shades, since the mid-January sun was so strong it already felt like summer.

“Let ‘em do most of the talking, we sit and listen. We don’t have to do a hard sellwell, not to begin with. Don’t look good. We don’t want to look desperate.”

Lorraine nodded, staring out the window.

“What you make of it?”

he asked nonchalantly.

Lorraine leaned back against the seat, eyes closed.

“Well, from what I’ve read in those newspapers you got it sounds to me as if it was maybe a kidnap case that went wrongno note, no ransom … she’s probably dead a long while. What do you make of it?”

Rooney headed off the San Diego Freeway, the 405, then on to the Sunset Boulevard turnoff heading toward Beverly Hills.

“Well, as far as I can make out, the kid didn’t seem the type to go off with any kind of rough trade. She knew the area, been there many times, parents have homes there. Maybe she went freely, but it was Mardi Gras, so who knows. … If we get the case we’ll get to know more details from New Orleans. Can’t do much this end, guys in LA just covered statements, you know, from family and associates, to see if there was a possible link to the case back here.”

“Was there?”

“Not as far as I know, they got diddly-squat here.”

“No ransom note,”

Lorraine repeated to herself. She remained deep in thought for another ten minutes or so as they drove on, then she opened her eyes.

“Remember that case, 1986, young girl disappeared, turned up eighteen months later in Las Vegas as a showgirl? The family really thought she’d be found dead; instead she was found wearing a G-string and her new silicone tits decorated with a few sequins.”

Rooney shook his head.

“Nope, don’t remember it.”

He stopped at traffic lights, then turned into Beverly Hills. Lorraine lit a cigarette, puffing it alight from the car’s dashboard lighter.

“Reason I remember it is because of the time it took tracing her, eighteen months. If they want us on this, we gotta think about how long it takes tracing anyon^falive or dead,”

Lorraine said thoughtfully.

Rooney reached over to the glove compartment and, flicking it open, handed Lorraine an envelope.

“They’re a sort of guideline of expenses. Pal gimme them a while back, you know, when I first thought about bein’ a private dick, useful information. If we get the job, we got to know how much to ask for. Check ‘em out.”

Lorraine skimmed over the notes and tucked the sheets back into the envelope; she already had a good idea how much to ask for, but nowhere near what some of the agencies were charging for their high-tech equipment, from bugging and tracking devices to computerized files and camcorders.

“We’ll undercut those other agencies but give the same crap about our high-tech gear. We don’t wanna come on cheap.”

She replaced the envelope and snapped the glove compartment closed on seeing the stashed bottle of bourbon.

“Right,”

Rooney grunted as they drove past the high hedgerows and the ornate houses patrolled by security guards with dogs at electronically barred gates.

“Some of these places remind you of a prison?”

he asked, and Lorraine laughed softly.

“No way, man. If you’d been behind bars, no way you’d describe these millionaires’ mansions as prisons.^’

They reached a small rotary with an arrow sign pointing to the Bel Air Hotel. They turned left, passing the Bel Air, and continued up the quiet road. m”

Rooney slowed down.

“Next house on me left.”

He noticed that she straightened up in her seat, pulling her jacket down. She looked great, and, in contrast to his bulky, unhealthy self, she looked fit. Amazing, considering the punishment she’d heaped on herself. Her resilience constantly amazed him, and he admired her for it. Not too far back in the past she had been arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy, but she’d come a long way since then.

He swung the car in front of the gates, opening his window to a blast of hot air.

“Shit, it’s hot. Weather’s crazy, one second it’s pissing down, the next they’re saying it’s going to be way up in the eighties today.”

He reached out to press the intercom and announced their arrival.

The gates remained closed for a couple of minutes, then eased smoothly open. From the entrance the house could not be seen, but the lush gardens were even more exotic than Rosie had described. They were like a hothouse jungle of ferns and carefully planted screens of evergreens, with palms of every shape and size covering each side of the pale gravel drive. They drove slowly past tennis courts, manicured lawns and flowerbeds blazing with color where water-sprinklers ensured they flourished in all the seasons. The water-spraying jets spinning in a wide arc gave the garden a hazy, surreal quality. Not until they turned a bend in the drive did the house itself come into view. The white pillars of the three-story Southern-style house were reminiscent of something out of Gone with the Windany moment one expected Scarlet O’Hara to come running down the white stone steps saying,

“Why, I do declare.”

But instead of Scarlett, a butler in a black suit and white waistcoat stood poised at the ornately carved front doors.

“Rosie said it was some place.”

Lorraine was in awe.

“Money,”

muttered Rooney.

A manservant appeared as if from nowhere to open the passenger door for Lorraine. She hesitated a moment before she stepped out and noticed that Rooney had broken out in a sweat by the time they began walking up the steps.

“Good morning, would you please follow me, Mrs. Page, Mr. Rooney?”

said the butler stiffly. He was English, his frozen face devoid of any expression as he gestured for them to go ahead of him into the hall. The white marble floor was so polished it glittered, light sparkling on the surface as they followed the butler toward closed ceiling-high white and goldembossed double doors leading off to the right of the hall.

“Mrs. Caley will join you directly,”

the butler said as he gestured for them to head into the room. White sofas with white frilled scatter pillows in satin and silks were everywhere, and everything was white on white with a gold embroidery finish. The white silk Japanese wallpaper had faint outlines of shimmering birds, and hanging between the impressive gilt mirrors on every wall were large oil paintings of Elizabeth Caley in all her many movie roles.

“Ah, I remember her in that one,”

murmured Rooney as he stared at a painting.

“The Swamp, it was called, and she danced with a big snake.”

“May I offer you any refreshments?”

the butler asked as if he’d just smelled something bad.

Lorraine asked for a glass of water. Rooney would have liked a beer but he shrugged.

“Fine for me too, just water.”

The austere butler departed, and they were able to have a good look around the white palace, almost afraid to sit and disturb the carefully arrayed pillows. Rooney chose a white Louis XV chair, not that he had any notion it was the real McCoy. Only after he’d eased himself down into it did he worry that he might be too heavy for its spindly legs.

Lorraine looked around the room, noting the many beautifully framed

photographs of a young girl. She gestured to one.

“This must be the daughter.”

She looked toward the doorway and then moved closer to inspect a photograph. The girl was exceptionally pretty, with waist-length natural blond hair, a small, uptilted nose and wide pale eyes.

Lorraine sat down in the center of the vast white sofa, sinking so low into it that she felt self-conscious: her weight had disturbed the carefully arranged scatter pillows, which tumbled inward.

“I don’t suppose I could light a cigarette,”

she said almost to herself, looking over the white marble-top coffee table with its carefully placed objects, all either bronze or gold. None resembled an ashtray. She stared down at her shoes, almost hidden by the dense white pile of the carpet, and worried that Rosie’s quick brush might have left a smear of brown boot polish. She looked up as she heard the clink of ice cubes.

A maid in a black dress with a white pinafore entered with a tray of iced water, fizzy and still, with lemon, all in tall crystal glasses in silver and gold containers. Lorraine could barely hide a smile as Rooney murmured his thanks and his chair creaked ominously. The maid passed each of them the water of their choice and then put the tray down. As she returned to the door, Phyllis appeared.

“Don’t get up, please. I’m Phyllis Collins, Rosie’s friend. You must be Lorraine? If I may call you, er… Lorraine?”

She scurried across the room and shook Lorraine’s hand, and then acknowledged Rotmey.

“And you are William Rooney, Rosie told me all about you. Please don’t get up, Mrs. Caley knows you are here and will be with you shortly.”

Lorraine nodded her thanks. Rooney felreven more awkward in his chair but at least no longer felt the heat becarise the room was icy cold.

“This has been a very distressing time,”

Phyllis said, hovering by the matching Louis XV chair opposite Rooney’s.

“Will you be staying for”

Lorraine couldn’t think how to describe the meeting.

“No, no, Mrs. Caley has asked me not to. I am really just her cornpanion. She should be down any moment.”

The moment stretched to three quarters of an hour. They discussed Elizabeth Caley’s films and paintings, and Phyllis’s English background, tut whenever Lorraine tried to steer the conversation toward the reason why they were there, Phyllis changed the subject. Lorraine had drunk two tall glasses of water and refused any more because she knew she would need the bathroom. Rooney had gulped his down and wished he hadn’t asked for carbonated waterhe could feel the gas roaming around in his belly. A clock chimed and all three looked at the large goldembossed and glass-domed ormolu clock on the white mantel.