Motive (17 page)

Eileen Forbisher, finally able to steady her voice, said, “This is disgusting, terrible, disgusting. Frankie was supposed to be watching the house for us.”

As if the dead woman had failed to live up to expectation.

Her husband said, “Obviously, she couldn’t even watch for herself.”

“Jack! How can you be so matter-of-fact?”

He shrugged.

His wife said, “Yecch, I can still smell it and I haven’t even been out there.”

“I wouldn’t let her,” said Jack Forbisher, sniffing. “You really think you smell it in here?”

Eileen said, “Putrid.”

My nose picked up nothing.

Milo said, “So then what happened, sir?”

“I poked around near the garbage and there wasn’t any dead critter and as I got closer to the back house the smell got worse. I’m still figuring nothing terrible, maybe she left and a critter got inside. Her lights were out and her door was locked so I let myself in with my key and saw what I saw.” His nose wrinkled. “I got the hell out and called 911, end of story. When can we clean up?”

“Jack,” said Eileen, “she was a person.”

“Not anymore.” He canted his head out of his wife’s view and favored us with a
see-what-I-go-through?
eye roll. “Anyway, I got the hell right out, don’t worry, didn’t mess up your CSI.”

Milo said, “Appreciate it, sir. What kind of person was Frankie?”

Eileen said, “Quiet. Different from us, but no problem.”

“Different, how?”

“The tattoos, the rings and studs, paper clips, whatever.”

Jack said, “Without all that crap, she’d probably be a nice-looking girl. But no personality, you’d say hi, she’d pretend not to hear you.”

“Shy,” said Eileen. “Really shy. She had trouble making eye contact.”

Jack said, “She applied to rent, I said to myself nutcase hippie, forget about it. But once you get her to talk you can see she’s basically a quiet girl, no ax to grind. I’m a good judge of character, worked in L.A. Unified for thirty years.”

I said, “Teacher?”

“Maintenance coordinator, I ran all the electrical and plumbing for the northwest sector. That means dealing with people, I can tell who’s going to be a problem and who isn’t.”

“Frankie wasn’t a problem.”

“Quiet as a mouse,” he said. “Afraid of her own shadow, one of those nerds.”

“She was
so
quiet,” said Eileen. “You wouldn’t know she was there.”

Milo said, “Did she have a boyfriend?”

“Never. We never saw any visitors, period.”

Jack said, “The only thing was once in a while she’d come home late. Real late, like early morning. I could hear footsteps.”

“More than one set?”

“Nah, just her. I can look out from our bedroom, sometimes I’d look and see her. You think some kind of boyfriend did it?”

Milo said, “It’s too early to think anything.”

“I sure as hell hope that’s not it. Some lunatic knowing where we live.” He puffed out his chest. “I own firearms but I’d prefer not to have to use them.”

Eileen said, “You just keep them in the safe, I hate those things.”

Jack said, “Frankie had a gun, she might still be alive.”

Eileen turned to Milo. “Are we in danger, Lieutenant? Please tell him not to play Rambo.”

“This kind of crime is generally directed against a specific victim.”

“See, Jack?”

“He has his opinion, I have mine.”

Milo said, “What else can you tell us about Frankie?”

Eileen said, “She was always timely with her rent.”

“How much did she pay.”

“Thousand a month,” said Jack. “And lucky to get it.”

“How long has she been your tenant?”

“Nine months.”

Eileen said, “And we probably spoke fifty words in all that time.”

I said, “Not a single visitor?”

“Not that we saw but nowadays we’re always traveling, so I can’t say never.”

“Did she have a lease?”

“Nope, month-to-month,” said Jack. “Leases are useless. If someone’s shifty, try recovering a dime, and if they’re honest you don’t need a lease. Month-to-month is smart, they give problems, you give ’em the gate. You think this had something to do with her lifestyle?”

“What lifestyle is that, Mr. Forbisher?”

“The holes she put in herself. That crazy stuff she collected.”

“That’s prejudice,” said Eileen.

“I don’t think prejudice is her problem now,” said Jack.

Eileen said, “May I ask when you’ll be finished?”

Milo said, “Soon as we can.”

“And you’ll be cleaning the back house, I assume.”

Milo crossed his legs. “Strictly speaking, ma’am, we don’t clean up crime scenes.”

“What?” she said. “You expect me to get down on my hands and knees and scour all that … that horror?”

“There are services that specialize, Mrs. Forbisher. I can give you their—”

“All the taxes we pay and we have to pay more? That’s outrageous, Lieutenant!”

Jack said, “All for the better, Eileen. Something like this, you’d sure as hell want a specialist, not some cop pretending to be one.” To Milo: “Give me at least two outfits, I always comparison-shop.”

Milo passed along cards from three cleaning services.

Forbisher entered the information in an address book, writing in laboriously precise block lettering.

Eileen stood. “I can’t take the stench, need a bath. If you need anything else, Mr. Sharpshooter will tell you.”

Without his wife present, Jack Forbisher seemed more eager to help. Had more to offer than we’d expected.

The bookstore where Francesca DiMargio worked was called Even Odd.

Her parents lived close by in West L.A. “Never met ’em but you could say we’ve done business because usually the rent came from them.”

Milo said, “How much is usual?”

Forbisher thumbed his address book. “Six out of nine months. Also the damage deposit. They’re not going to be seeing any of
that
again.”

Milo said, “Their address, please.”

Forbisher read it off. “So tell me, which of the three cleaners is best?”

“They’re all good, sir.”

“There’s always one who stands out.”

“Try Bio-Vac.”

“Hope they’re the most reasonable,” said Forbisher. “I don’t think I should have to pay a dime but no sense fighting City Hall.” Brief glance at the diamond window. “I don’t even want to know what they’re doing back there. My wife needs to get back to normal or
my
life will be a living hell.”

Milo lit up a panatela, blew out enough smoke to envelop his head for several seconds, rematerialized and led me into the backyard. Wafts of cheap tobacco didn’t help. Neither did being outdoors. The stench was overpowering, a stomach-churning, brain-searing reek that saturated the ten yards separating the main house from the structure that still looked like a garage.

Jack Forbisher was right about one thing: Once you smelled decomp you never forgot it. Despite a steady breeze from the west, my eyes began to water. Milo dragged hard on his cigar. He turned and I spotted sheen around his nostrils. Lining his nasal passages with Vapo-Rub. He offered me the tube. I used it and it helped, but not much.

A thousand bucks a month had gotten Francesca DiMargio a hundred fifty square feet of what real estate agents call “open plan.” The space was now filled with techs wearing white hazmat suits and gas
masks. Most worked steadily. One figure stood to the side, doing nothing. He waved.

Milo said, “Sean. He caught the call.”

Binchy’s arms dangled at his side. Relaxed, nothing bothers him.

Plenty to get bothered about, here.

The thing that had once been Francesca DiMargio was a brown/black/green/maroon putrid mass dissolving onto the polished cement floor at the mouth of a one-step kitchenette. Tooth and bone flashed white beneath sloughing skin. Metallic glints, at least seven that I counted, indicated the body piercings. Hard to say where they’d been located originally because so much skin had collapsed and oozed.

Four festering limbs had been positioned in a way that evoked Kathy Hennepin. So did the use of a bedsheet to completely cover the body. What remained of the linen had been pushed aside so that the photographer could snap and pop.

Near the corpse was a makeshift table fashioned from a giant electrical spool laid on its side, the kind used to feed wire for massive projects. Atop the raw wood surface was more decaying matter.

On dishes.

Welcome to dinner.

Impossible to say what this last meal had consisted of. The crockery bearing it was white just like Frankie DiMargio’s teeth and bones where they weren’t streaked with oozing, clotted matter. The same went for silvery utensils and red glass goblets.

A bottle of wine on the counter was obtrusively clean.

Milo read the label. “Prosecco. Cheap.”

The techs never let up but all of them kept their distance from the body when possible.

Milo motioned to the nearest tech. His suit and mask evoked a
Star Wars
stormtrooper.

Resonant rasp: “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Any idea what the food is, yet?”

“I think I spotted some kind of fish—white, flaky. Or maybe it’s
chicken. Maybe also peas, at least some kind of little round green thingies. I mean I hope they’re peas but I’m not committing ’cause what I thought was rice turned out to be dead maggots.”

“Think of that,” said Milo. “Cuisine strong enough to kill a maggot.”

“You know how it is, sir. Sometimes the little buggers get overenthusiastic and sink in too deep and can’t wiggle out. The lucky ones become flies.”

“Survival of the fittest maggot,” said Milo. “The essence of police work.”

Asthmatic laughter through the mask’s activated carbon filter. “Anything else, Lieutenant?”

“A time of death guess would help. I won’t hold you to it.”

“It would have to be a long time for this level of decomp, Lieutenant. For sure, days, maybe a week. Or even weeks, temperature’s not too high, the rate could’ve been slow. But I’m really not the guy to ask, you’ll have to find out from the coroner.”

“How about cause?”

“This much mess?”

“No obvious wounds.”

Trooper’s white chest heaved. “The way it looks, she’s one
big
wound.”

“Don’t suppose you noticed a computer.”

“Not so far. And there’s no closet space plus we checked the drawers, so I’d say no.”

“How about a diary detailing who the bad guy is, including physical description, address, telephone number, and political preferences?”

More rasp. “Something else I’m surprised hasn’t shown up, Lieutenant: No cell phone. Although maybe we’ll find it, with all the crap she collected, you never know.”

“The crap” was far too much thrift-shop and dozens of taxidermy specimens. Snakes baring fangs coiled around branches. Glass-eyed heads of wolves and foxes, sheep and cows, skunks and badgers stared
at one another relentlessly. Gleaming jars on makeshift shelves held what looked to be fetal creatures in suspension. Added to all that were random animal parts, including an elephant’s foot serving as a repository for black silk flowers.

Much of the preservation appeared past its prime, pelts flea-bitten and mangy, specimens closest to the body flecked with gore. The smell got the better of me and I ran out, retraced through the yard, sidled along two cars parked side by side in the driveway. The Forbishers’ bronze Cadillac CTS and a battered black Kia that had been Frankie DiMargio’s daily ride.

Even back at the curb, my nostrils remained saturated. I was twenty feet up the block and chewing my fourth breath mint when Milo joined me.

“You probably didn’t need that.”

“Glad I saw it.”

“Why?”

“Seeing the way she lived.”

“Meaning?”

“People with unusual interests often find others who share their tastes. Frankie sounds like a loner but there were times she came home late, so some sort of socializing was going on. Maybe you’ll find a tight little social group that can enlighten you.”

“Fellow formaldehyde freaks? Can’t wait.” He lit up another cigar. “All that dead stuff she collected. To me it’s like trivializing what I see every day.”

I said, “Obviously, death holds no fascination for you. Same for kids growing up on farms, or in places like India where bodies are displayed openly. But our culture hides it and that can make it even more terrifying. For some people, manipulating specimens helps by simulating control.”

He smoked. “Manipulation sounds like our bad boy. You see a suit like Fellinger hooking up with someone like Frankie?”

“Affairs of the heart, there’s no telling.”

“Seriously, Alex.”

“I mean it. One thing Frankie had in common with Kathy Hennepin is shyness. Someone—even a suit—who could make her feel comfortable might have an advantage.”

He took a few steps, reversed, returned. “The food, the whole staging thing. Seeing those specimens in there got me thinking. That’s what taxidermists do, right? Arrange bodies, create tableaus. What if Fellinger—or whoever—met Frankie through her hobby and decided she’d be
his
specimen?”

“Whoever? You’ve got new doubts about Fellinger?”

“Time to think gave me doubts. Nothing happened during surveillance and let’s face it, I’ve got nothing on him but theory.”

He dropped what was left of the cigar, ground it out with his shoe. “Another family to talk to, fun-time—let me ask you, amigo, what that tech said, everything tastes like chicken. You think chickens say everything tastes like corn?”

By one thirty a.m., nothing new had emerged from Frankie DiMargio’s crime scene.

Milo said, “I’ll notify her parents tomorrow, give ’em a few more hours before their world changes.”

I said, “When?”

“I’m thinking nine, ten. You free?”

“Give me an hour to get ready.”

“Putting on your game face? Mine never seems to fit.”

He didn’t get in contact until just after one p.m., thick-voiced and wrung-out. Rather than sleep, he’d returned to watching Grant Fellinger’s house. Fellinger’s Challenger and the BMW probably driven by his wife remained in place until seven fifty-eight a.m. when Fellinger left his house and drove the Dodge back to his office in Century City.