Dream House (15 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN

Wednesday, November 12. 10:30
A.M
. 6000 block of Cadillac Avenue. A man became angry with a woman at a hospital while waiting for service and threw a cup of urine at her, striking the victim in the chest. (Wilshire)

I
MUST HAVE DRIVEN BY GOLDEN VISTA A THOUSAND
times before, but I'd never noticed it, which is probably what the owners intended. It was a pineapple yellow, two-story stucco structure near the corner of Orange and Fairfax, a block north of Wilshire and in the heart of Miracle Mile, which was originally named for eighteen acres of empty land along the stretch of Wilshire between La Brea and Fairfax that A. W. Ross developed in the 1920s and turned into a prestigious business and shopping district. The “miracle” of Wilshire was later extended to Beverly Hills, where you'll find Neiman's and Saks Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive. Until I learned otherwise, I thought it was named for the medical offices that filled most of the tall buildings along Wilshire and have been moved to the twin Third Street medical towers connected to Cedars-Sinai Hospital or to buildings on Rexford and Bedford in the heart of Beverly Hills. But that's a different kind of miracle.

Golden Vista was across the street from a 99¢ Only Store and kitty-corner to the historic 1939 Streamline Moderne May Company building with its distinctive four-story gold mosaic quarter cylinder at one corner. (The building now belongs to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.) It's also a block away from Johnie's Coffee Shop Restaurant (run-down and defunct but available for film locations) and the Petersen Automotive Museum that organizations use to host events and where Edie's friend's son just had his bar mitzvah reception. A great neighborhood for bargains, cheap nosh, art, and nostalgia, depending on your fancy.

The facility was half a mile from my apartment on Blackburn and would have made for a brisk walk if I were so inclined and if the skies weren't dumping sheets of water. After finding a parking spot, I hurried down the block and entered through glass doors into a lobby filled with sofas, a table, a tall potted plant, and a Rockettes-like chorus line of wheelchaired residents, most of them elderly women. They returned my smile with glum stares, probably dejected by the downpour that was keeping them indoors.

Norm had been right about the wallpaper, a pebbled gray with a gray, yellow, and blue paisley ceiling border that spiffed up the carpeted lobby and linoleum-covered corridors. Through partially open doors I caught glimpses of a coordinating paper and matching bedspreads in the residents' rooms as Walter Ochs, his arm on my elbow, whisked me to his office. Along with the vinyl-and-paste smell of new wallpaper, I was accosted by the acrid odor of urine and something else that made my nose twitch and that I was content not to identify.

I caught glimpses of the residents, too. Many were lying on their beds, staring at those pretty paisley borders or a TV screen; some with their bare legs uncovered; some flashing a hint of blue diaper. One woman was moaning. A man was yelling for an attendant. Two female nurses were chatting ten feet away, but neither rushed to the man's side until a red-faced Ochs prompted them.

“We're short staffed today, so it's been hectic,” Ochs said when he was seated behind a utilitarian wood-tone desk. He smoothed what was left of his graying hair against the sides of his head. “If you weren't Norman's sister-in-law, I'd ask you to come back another time.” He was smiling, but clearly annoyed.

Norm had advised me to stop by unannounced—“If you want to see what a place is
really
like, Molly.” I wasn't scouting for a facility, but I'd been curious.

“I really appreciate your seeing me,” I said.

“You didn't say exactly what you needed to know. Something about a resident?”

“Professor Oscar Linney.”

“The old man who died in that fire.” Ochs sighed. “Terrible thing, terrible. I read about it in the paper, and I recognized the name. But he wasn't a resident.”

“No, but I understand that his daughter came to see you in June of this year.”

“That's right.” Ochs sounded wary, probably wondering where I was headed.

“Was she planning to have him admitted?”

Ochs hesitated. “I'm not sure I should be discussing this, Miss Blume.”

“Call me Molly.” I smiled. “As you said, he wasn't a resident, so you wouldn't be violating his privacy.”

Ochs straightened one of the photos on his desk. “What's your interest in Professor Linney?”

“I'm writing about what happened to him, and I'd like to get as much background as possible. I know he had Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I don't know much else. I'm trying to fill in the blanks, and I'm hoping you'll help me.”

He took a few seconds before answering. “I guess there's no harm. Yes, the daughter talked about having him admitted. We have a dementia unit, so that fit his needs.”

“Did she say why? I'm curious, because her husband said she was against placing her father in a facility. So I'm wondering what happened to change her mind.” And why she didn't tell her husband about it.

“Miss Blume—”

“Molly.” I smiled again.

“Molly.” This time he smiled back. “Most children resist placing a parent in a facility. They feel guilty. They want to take care of the parent themselves, to do the right thing. But at some point—and it's different for everyone—many children come to realize that doing the right thing isn't always achieved by keeping the parent at home. Dealing with an ailing parent can wreak havoc on the rest of the family, and it isn't always medically sound. So they search for a place that will provide their parent with the highest standard of care in a secure environment. That's what we pride ourselves on at Golden Vista.”

It was his spiel, and he'd delivered it with sincerity. It would have been more effective if I hadn't smelled the urine and witnessed the indifference of two of his staff. But that wasn't why I was here.

“I'm still not clear why she changed her mind so suddenly. Did something happen?” Something that would explain the two exclamation points next to the entry—unless, of course, Margaret was fond of exclamation points, the way some people draw little hearts instead of dots over their lowercase
i
s.

“I don't think it was anything dramatic. She told me Professor Linney was deteriorating, physically and mentally. He was becoming increasingly combative with the caregiver and everyone in the house.”

“With her husband?”

Ochs shrugged. “She didn't say. A major factor was Professor Linney's refusal to move to the new house she and her husband were building. Basically, she realized she could no longer keep him with her.”

I didn't believe it. Something had happened. Another altercation between Linney and Hank? Had Margaret tired of playing referee and peacemaker? Had she chosen her husband over her father? Reston hadn't mentioned quarreling with his father-in-law the day before his wife disappeared, but why would he? And I had only his word for his wife's romantic mood before he left for his business trip.

“I'll tell you one thing,” Ochs said. “This was a tough decision for her. She was extremely agitated, had a hard time holding herself back from crying.”

“Do you know if she'd decided to place him here?”

“Oh, sure.” Ochs nodded. “She filled out all the admission papers. To be honest, I was kind of surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most people ask a thousand questions. They want to know everything: schedules, menus, activities, staff, therapy, visiting hours, home visits. I showed her around, she liked what she saw, asked me a few things, and that was it.” Ochs shrugged. “She was desperate. She wanted us to take him that day. I told her we didn't have a bed, and she got this look in her eyes, like she was going to lose it.”

Why the urgency? I wondered.

“People are like that,” Ochs said, as if reading my mind. “Once they make up their minds, they want to get it over with. I phoned her later that day to tell her we'd have a bed on Monday. She wasn't home, so I left a message. I never heard back from her. Then I read that she'd gone missing and was probably dead. And now the father is dead, too. It makes you stop and think, doesn't it?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

A
NGELINO HEIGHTS IS A TWENTY-MINUTE DRIVE FROM
my apartment if there's no traffic. At four-thirty this evening it was more like fifty minutes because of a rush-hour snarl compounded by the on-and-off rain that made the streets slippery and drivers brake-happy and prone to blaring their horns, which pissed off more drivers and incurred more blaring of horns. At one point I realized I was one of the blarers. Reflex, I guess, or the call of the wild.

Bounded by Sunset Boulevard on the north, the Hollywood Freeway on the south, Boylston Street on the east, and Echo Park Lake on the west, Angelino Heights is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and has been called its first suburb. It's an ethnic mix—primarily Asian, white, and Latino—and an economic one, too: It's not unusual to find new immigrants living next door to a wealthy businessman. The neighborhood is also well located. It's five minutes from downtown, practically in spitting range of the nexus of three overlapping freeways, and within walking distance of Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium.

I learned all that in my HARP research. I also learned that Angelino Heights was one of the first areas to be designated a HARP. Even in the fading gray light I could see why. It's charming and old-world, and the city and the area residents would naturally want to preserve the homes—Mission Revival, Craftsman-California Bungalow, and, most significantly, the Queen Annes and Victorians.

Ned Vaughan lived on “the hill,” as residents refer to the neighborhood, on the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue in a gray two-story wedding-cake Victorian with turrets and gables, a white wraparound porch, and frostinglike medallions and other intricate architectural details.

He stood in the doorway in gray tweed slacks and a black cashmere sweater, looking more casual than he had at the HARP meeting. He looked taller, too, now that I was wearing flat boots instead of those high-heeled ones that looked divine but had blistered my toes.

“Molly Blume, huh?” He looked at my card, then up at me, a hint of patronizing amusement in his blue eyes. “I wondered about your name when you phoned me this morning. I'll bet you get teased.”

“All the time.” I smiled and gritted my teeth. At this rate I'd need them capped before long. Though if Vaughan didn't invite me in soon, I'd probably freeze to death first. The wind, wet and blustery, made me shiver right on cue. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” I prompted.

“Hank said you're helping him.” Vaughan opened the door wide and stepped aside to let me enter, but he sounded only a little less reluctant than when I'd reached him at his USC office, and his “Come on in” had forced enthusiasm, as if he suspected I carried the Ebola virus.

In the entry he set my umbrella in a brass stand, divested me of my raincoat, which he folded in half so that it wouldn't drip on the heavily veined black marble floor, and invited me to wipe my shoes on an old mat.

“I don't mean to be a fusspot, but I just found this lovely antique and I'd hate to get it dirty,” he said, indicating a fringed round burgundy area rug.

I wiped my shoes well. Twice. Reassured, he disappeared somewhere with my raincoat—probably the laundry room or bathroom. The house was toasty, and by the time he returned I had warmed up.

Vaughan warmed up, too, after I told him how much I admired the exterior of his home.

“You should have seen it when I bought the place. It was covered with asphalt shingles.” He grimaced. “Taking them down was a bitch, and then we had to putty thousands of nail holes and sand the walls before we could paint. Four coats,” he added.

“But it was obviously worth it,” I said, laying on a thick coat myself.

“Absolutely. I was lucky to buy this beauty a year ago, just before housing prices skyrocketed. By the way, this block is listed in the National Register of Historic Places,” he told me, and beamed when I made the appropriate admiring response.

He took me on a tour of the living and dining rooms and three bedrooms (“Victorian houses typically have small rooms,” he explained), pointing out the hardwood flooring that had been hidden by “nasty” carpeting, ceiling and base moldings that had been stripped of generations of paint and refinished, light fixtures that had been repaired, hardware restored and polished to a burnished luster.

“Everything you see is architecturally authentic,” he told me with a lover's pride, caressing a large brass doorknob as if it were a woman's breast.

He led me to the rear window of the unfurnished bedroom where we were standing and pulled aside the drape. “In the daylight you can look out across Elysian Park to the San Gabriel Mountains. It's quite a view.”

From my bedroom window I can see the neighbor's bathroom, about six feet away. Sometimes I can hear him, too, and the program is more
South Park
than PBS. So I was duly impressed and envious and said so.

The tour over, Vaughan walked me back to the living room, where he turned on Tiffany lamps on both ends of a dark green brocade sofa with a wood frame, ornate carved legs, and a seamless bench seat that looked punishing but was actually comfortable. The light from the lamps cast a subdued jewel-toned glow on the ecru moiré papered walls and on a parquet floor Vaughan had stripped and restained.

He sniffed the air. “You can still smell the protective finish. I hope it doesn't bother you.”

I had the feeling that to Vaughan, the scent was as heady as an expensive perfume. “You've done a wonderful job with the house.”

“It's coming along.” He looked pleased. “I haven't touched the kitchen or either bathroom. Restoring is much more expensive than remodeling. More time-consuming, too. But it's worth it, and I'm in no rush.”

“Professor Linney loved his home, too,” I said, grabbing the opening. “I understand that you were in his department at USC.”

“Oscar was my mentor. More than that, he was a good friend.” Vaughan's eyes filled with tears, which he blinked away. He clamped his lips together, fighting for control. “I still can't believe he's dead. Did you meet him?”

“Once, a week ago.”

“Then you didn't know him. He was a brilliant architectural historian before the Alzheimer's took its toll. It was frustrating and terrifying for him. He was aware he was deteriorating. Seeing it broke my heart.”

I tried to imagine being in Linney's situation and felt fresh pity for the old man. “Did his personality change? I know that can happen with Alzheimer's.”

“Are you asking if he was crabby
before
? Yes, he was. Sometimes I thought he was proud of it.” A smile softened the architect's angular face. “The disease made him worse, but he was always demanding of himself and others. He didn't brook mediocrity or ignorance.”

“How did he feel about his son-in-law?” I asked, jumping right in.

Vaughan frowned and opened his mouth to say something. Then he laughed. “Hank warned me that you're direct. He made his first million when he was twenty-four, by the way, so I wouldn't sell him short. But no, he and Oscar weren't a match made in heaven.”

“I understand you and Hank have been close for years.”

“Since high school. I helped him with his papers. He kept the bullies from picking on me.” Vaughan smiled.

“I'm surprised he didn't hire you to design the Muirfield house.”

“Between USC and my consulting job, I'm way too busy. And mixing business with friendship is never a good idea.”

“So they say. By the way, who took over as department chair after Professor Linney became ill?”

“Robert Langhorn is acting chair. I don't envy him. Being chair is no picnic. Endless politics.” Vaughan crossed one leg over the other. “Hank says you're helping him find out what happened to Margaret. No offense, but do you really think you can do more than the police?”

I didn't blame him for being skeptical. I was, too. “I doubt it. But sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is helpful. When did you last see Margaret?”

“I spoke to her that Wednesday. She called to confirm that I would keep Oscar company while she and Hank went to a dinner. I saw her about a week before that. Hank was out of town, and I had dinner at the house with her and Oscar.”

“Just like old times,” I said.

He threw me a sharp, reproving look. “Margaret and I were friends, nothing more. Sure, Oscar was dying for us to be together. I'm a great guy.” Vaughan smiled. “But we didn't click. And I wouldn't have wanted to be Oscar's son-in-law. I loved the man, but dealing with him at USC was enough. I didn't need him controlling my life. Don't get me wrong,” he added quickly. “I owe Oscar everything. He groomed me. He got me on the tenure track. His recommendation got me a consulting job with a large firm.”

“Anderson, Finch, and Mulganey. Your firm did the Hancock Park historical survey, right?”

“Right.” Vaughan's eyes showed surprise.

“I covered the HARP meeting last week for the
Times,
” I told him. “Someone pointed you out.”

“I thought you looked familiar.” He studied me as though he were seeing me for the first time. “A lot of angry people at that meeting, on
both
sides of the issue.”

“Like Roger Modine. You and he were going at it.”

Vaughan seemed taken aback. Then he laughed again—a little nervously, I thought. “You
are
observant. Modine is a sore loser. He didn't like the results of the survey.” He shrugged. “We didn't invent the statistics. And we don't benefit one way or the other.”

“Aside from the fee. How much did the city pay your firm? Two hundred fifty thousand, wasn't it?” I'd checked the details for last week's story.

“Something like that. There's a great deal of research involved, Molly, and if you calculate the cost per hour, it's not high at all.” He managed to sound patronizing and defensive at the same time. “I didn't set the fee. I certainly didn't see much of it.”

“I was just curious.” I'd succeeded in annoying him, which didn't bode well for eliciting information. “What's your view about HARP?”

He tugged on an exposed inch of patterned maroon sock. “Obviously, I'm all for preserving the beauty of L.A. Take this area, for example. The homes in the 1300 and 1400 blocks of Carroll Avenue represent the highest concentration and best collection of Queen Annes and Victorians in the city. And it has a rich history.” The architect was in his element now, relaxed, expansive. “Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson had homes here, and they filmed the Keystone Kops chase scenes on these streets. But if developers had their way, they'd tear down some of the older structures and build high-rise apartment buildings.”

“Professor Linney was for HARP, too, correct?”

Vaughan nodded. “Preservation was his passion. He talked about writing a book on the subject, before the Alzheimer's. He even wrote down some notes and came up with a title, but that's as far as he got. It's a shame.”

“Why don't you write it?”

“Oscar was pushing me to do just that. About a month before he died, I said okay.” Vaughan sighed. “A few weeks before that I'd surprised him with photos I'd taken of structures in the different HARP areas. I thought he'd be pleased, but he barked at me. ‘What the hell do I need these for?'” Vaughan had imitated Linney's high, whiny voice well. “Seeing them probably made him realize he'd never write the book.”

He was silent, no doubt thinking about Linney, and my thoughts went to Bubbie G. She's been stoic about not being able to drive her car anymore, but I know she misses reading and doing the needlepoint that used to keep her company most evenings, and my heart aches for her when she can't make out the faces of her family and friends. So I understand better than I did before why, in our daily prayers for the sick, we ask God to grant them “a healing of the soul and a healing of the body.”

Vaughan stood abruptly. “Excuse me a minute.”

He left the room and returned with a pack of cigarettes and a cut crystal ashtray that he set on the mahogany coffee table. “I stopped smoking three weeks ago,” he said, sitting down, “but Oscar's death kind of ended that. Do you mind?”

I shrugged. I hate cigarettes—what they do and how they smell. But this was his house, his lungs. His teeth, too, although unlike Modine's, they weren't discolored, and his breath didn't reek. I was surprised that he wasn't concerned about the effects of the smoke on the expensive upholstery and drapes and rugs he'd chosen with such care. I also wondered if lacquer is easily combustible.

Vaughan lit up and dropped the match into the ashtray. He took a luxurious puff and exhaled slowly, sending a mini-tornado-like plume into the air inches from my face.

“I imagine that Professor Linney and Hank didn't agree about HARP,” I said, moving my head back and resisting the urge to fan away the smoke.

Vaughan smiled. “Among other things.”

“That must have been rough on Margaret, playing referee.”

“It made life hell for her. Sometimes I think I should never have—” He stopped. “It was hard on everyone.”

“You should never have what? Introduced Hank to her?”

“Maybe.” He took another, longer puff. “Because things turned out so tragically. You know what I mean.”

I didn't know, and I didn't think that's what he'd meant. “But not because Hank and Margaret met,” I said, a question in my voice. “He's not responsible for her death, or Professor Linney's.”

Vaughan stared at me. “Of course not.”

“Do you think she ran away and faked the kidnapping?”

He attacked the cigarette again. “The idea crossed my mind,” he finally said. “Because sometimes it was awful in that house. You could feel the tension. She loved Oscar. She loved Hank. What was she supposed to do? But not to leave a note?” He took another puff. “Hank told me she phoned Oscar on Thursday, so I guess she did. Run away, I mean. But where the hell is she now?” he demanded with a flash of anger. “Where has she been all this time? How could she put her father and husband through this?” Leaning forward, he mashed the butt against the hapless ashtray.

“Some people I've talked to said Hank was possessive.”

“He was crazy in love with her. He'd waited a long time to find someone like her.”