No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (52 page)

“Oh, no. She’s definitely hot. In a
cold, heartless, ice queen kind of way.”

“You’re yanking my chain again,
aren’t you?”

“I sure am.”

After dinner, we headed back to West
Avenue. Arriving back at my address, Jasper said good night,
climbed into his Lexus, and drove off into the sunset. I headed
upstairs, excited that tomorrow was the first day of the new
renovation. I went to bed early, anticipating the thrill of the
first hammer whack on the new job. You never know what hides inside
the walls.

I was the first one there the next
morning, so I had the bungalow to myself. Susan Lefkowitz’s family
cleared out most of her belongings just before the closing. They
rented a van and hauled away the pieces they wanted. The rest they
left behind. As I walked through, I spied a little side table that
I thought could be repurposed with some fresh paint. In the drawer
was a Star of David on a silver chain. Most of the closets were
empty, save for wire hangers, empty shoe boxes, and the odd sock
left behind. I had done enough of these flips to know that people
sometimes left things behind that they really did want. Rather than
throw everything out, I worked methodically, sorting what would go
in the dumpster that Tidy Hauling was dropping off in a couple of
hours and what to keep. Less than thirty minutes later, I had a
pile of items by the front door to go. That left the basement to
explore, and it didn’t look like there was all that much down there
to clear out. Poking my way into the nooks and crannies, I removed
old mousetraps with dusty little skeletons, glad that I was wearing
nitrile gloves to protect myself. I found three old mason jars and
a couple of cardboard boxes of hardened laundry detergent powder
that looked like they were abandoned in the seventies. And then I
found the box of love letters.

Or could I call them love letters?
Tucked behind the old, abandoned furnace we planned to remove,
sitting up on a ledge, someone had put them out of reach. I used an
old stepladder to get them down. They were torrid notes about
sexual escapades that seemed to have taken place all over Glendale.
I wondered if the Lefkowitz family knew about them. Was that why
Susan’s relatives left them behind? Should I stop reading them?
After all, they were Susan’s private correspondences. But another
part of me wondered if I might find some clue, some hint of her
fate inside the envelopes. What if something bad had happened to
her and these letters held the secret?

By the third letter, I knew the man,
who signed his letters with a dramatic “K”, was married to a
clueless wife. Melanie was under the impression that the
vibrational healing sessions he took with Susan, also known as
Rainbow, were to help him recover his waning libido, and fooling
his wife seemed to delight him. “K” wrote to his lover that the
only thing that would do the trick was if Melanie dropped the
eighty pounds she gained after giving birth to their three
children. He talked about Susan’s prowess in bed and the New Age
healer’s ability to make him sexually satisfied in ways he never
knew existed before her. The graphic descriptions were a real
eye-opener for me. They clearly enjoyed pushing their sexual
activities in unusual directions.

The photos fell out of the seventh
envelope. Looking down at the one I held in my hand, it was my
first glance at the missing woman -- at least I assumed it was
Susan. You couldn’t call her beautiful. The face was too long, the
eyes too narrow, the lips too prominent for that. There was a look
of recklessness and wild abandon to her. Her hair was an untamed
mess of dark brown ringlets suspended in air, as if she had stuck
her wet finger in a light socket. She was very lithe, very limber,
judging from the positions she took in bed and out of it. She had a
rather unremarkable, undeveloped body, as far as bodies go, but she
was clearly an active participant in the party games. Posing in the
act with various toys, she gave the photographer her all --
pouting, grinning, clearly lusting for him. I was about to just
tuck all the photos back into the envelope, without looking any
closer, when my eyes lit on one Susan must have taken herself.
There was a man grinning from ear to ear, his wrists bound to the
headboard of a bed that was dressed in leopard print sheets. He was
naked and excited, his legs spread immodestly for the world to see.
I recognized the face. There was no doubt about it. I was looking
at Kyle Hargrove.

“Holy crap!” I sighed. Maybe it was
more than a coincidence that Kyle showed up here the other day.
Maybe he came to collect his pornography.

“Anyone here?” There was knocking on
the back door and I heard a male voice calling out. I quickly
thrust the depraved photographs back in the envelope and grabbed
the whole box before heading for the steps. Jasper was waiting on
the steps, so I let him in.

“Sorry to bother you. I’m on my way
to the city for a meeting right now, but I’m picking June up later
tonight. My mom wants to know if you’re free for lunch tomorrow.
She told me to tell you she’s looking forward to seeing the place.”
Jasper noticed the box tucked under my arm. “Find some
treasure?”

“Susan’s family left it behind. Lots
of letters,” I said guardedly. “I thought they might shed some
light on what happened to her.”

“Why do I get the feeling something
shook you up?” he asked. I shrugged. I wasn’t really sure I wanted
to show the photos to Jasper. After all, the very naked Susan was
exposed in all her glory. Then again, maybe it would be good to
talk to someone who knew what a vile piece of vermin Kyle Hargrove
was. I rummaged around in the box and pulled out the envelope with
the photos. I handed it to Jasper without a word. He took it,
peered inside, and then pulled out the letter. His eyes grew wide
as he read the words Kyle had written to his lover. Once he
finished, he carefully folded it up again and tucked it back into
its paper sheath. Then he pulled out the photos. Glancing at each
one in turn, he made little comments about Susan’s athletic
abilities and sexual propensities. When he got to Kyle’s triumphant
smile, he gave a low whistle.

“Wow. I guess we know now why Kyle
wants the house.”

“Here’s a dumb question,” I
responded. “What kind of guy wants to buy a house he doesn’t need,
just to get his hands on dirty pictures of himself and his missing
girlfriend?”

“Not a smart one,” Jasper
conceded.

Glancing out the window, I could see
the crew had arrived to dig up the pipes that were to be replaced.
They were wasting no time, maneuvering the back hoe into place. It
was a good thing we planned to tear up the yard and do new
landscaping, because their heavy machinery was wreaking havoc on
the yard. I turned my attention back to Jasper.

“The question is what do I do with
them? Should I take them to the police? What if Kyle killed her
because she tried to blackmail him?” There was something about the
look on Jasper’s face that stopped me.

“Kyle’s not necessarily a killer,
Suzanne. And Susan Lefkowitz might not be dead.”

“How can you say that?” I thought
about Jane and what she went through. “How can you defend the
guy?”

“I’m not defending him. I’m just
saying that dirty pictures do not a murderer make.”

“He raped Janie. Now Susan is
missing. She’s been gone a long time. He’s a wicked
man!”

“I have something to tell you about
Janie,” Jasper began. “There’s something you should
know....”

“Holy crap!” An excited Bobby
Rodriguez, our foreman, burst into the kitchen. “Zan! Zan! Come
quick! You’re not going to believe this!”

Jasper and I followed him out to the
side yard, where five members of the Dawkins Builders’ crew were
looking down into the freshly-excavated soil. We joined them,
leaning in for a closer look.

“We found the cause of that water
leak,” Manny, the operator of the back hoe, announced, pointing to
the pile of bones poking up through the rich brown earth. “Someone
must have cracked the pipe when he dug the hole to bury the
body.”

Two hours later, the neighborhood
was alive with people. The police had cordoned off the yard with
fluorescent yellow tape and evidence teams were collecting samples
and taking measurements. The box of letters was now in police
custody. Jasper had left for his meeting a little late. I went back
to the office after a lengthy session of questions by two
detectives. Ned shook his head as he came in from the parking
lot.

“Told you so, Suze. Said it was a
bad idea to buy a house when the homeowner was missing.”

“You did,” I agreed. “But look on
the bright side. Susan Lefkowitz is no longer missing. Her family
finally knows where she is.”

“On my dollar,” my brother
announced. “We’ll never sell that house now.”

“I’ll figure something out. I’m
actually glad Susan is no longer missing. Someone killed her and
buried the body. Someone almost got away with murder.” I thought
about Kyle and how much I wanted to see him behind bars. He got
away with what he did to Jane. He wouldn’t get away with silencing
the sexually adventurous Rainbow, thanks to those damning
photos.

“We’re going to be in the center of
a lot of negative press, Suzykins. Not good for
business.”

“You know what? We should have some
kind of service for Susan and invite the public. We should show
people that we regret her unfortunate death and we’re offering our
thoughts and prayers for Susan. If we’re lucky, we may found out
she wasn’t murdered on that spot.”

“But she was probably killed in the
house. Which raises the point that the police have issued a ban on
any work to the bungalow until the case is solved or they’ve at
least removed any and all evidence. We’re stuck with a house we
can’t flip.”

“Maybe they’ll solve the case
quickly.” I told Ned about the box of letters and the dirty
pictures. He made a face of disbelief, but I saw a glimmer of hope
behind the eyes.

“I’ll get started finding a rabbi to
officiate at the ceremony.”

“Any chance Jasper’s mother will
still want to buy the bungalow?”

“Possibly. But don’t worry. If the
house doesn’t sell in a month, I’ll buy it.”

“What? My baby sister is willing to
give up her little castle in the sky for the bungalow from hell?
Why?”

“I don’t know. There’s something
about this house that speaks to me. I felt it the first time I
walked through the door.”

“It’s your dollar,
kiddo.”

By two, we were inundated with calls
from the media. They wanted to know if we had photographs of the
bungalow they could use in their stories, since the police wouldn’t
let anyone inside. Someone had tipped the reporters to the box of
letters, and several of them peppered me with questions, which I
did not answer. Kyle had been at the police station for the better
part of the day, and it looked like he would be there for some time
to come. He had already hired a well-known criminal defense
attorney, M. Ross Twachter. Nothing but the best for that stinking
sleaze bag. I left Ned in charge of schmoozing with the press. I
knew he’d put the interests of Dawkins Builders in the forefront,
so I got busy on putting Susan Lefkowitz’s spirit to
rest.

I spoke with Rabbi Stein at Temple
Beth Shalom, explaining my desire to honor the dead and described
the area where Susan’s skeletal remains were recovered at the
Glengarry Court bungalow. I admitted I did not know what her
family’s wishes were and feared offending them by not understanding
Jewish tradition. He offered his services as a go-between,
extending a hand to her family while also serving as the
community’s liaison. He asked me if I could meet him at the
property and show him where the body was found and tell him how it
was discovered, so he could plan appropriate prayers for the dead
woman. I met with him a short time later, glad that I made the
right choice. He was a friendly, kind man with a reassuring manner,
and if anyone could soothe the spirits, it was he. The rabbi had
already contacted Susan’s family and they were amiable to having a
service for her at the site. In fact, they were most appreciative
that Susan’s body was finally discovered. Her mother said it was a
blessing in disguise that they finally decided not to wait any
longer to sell the bungalow. Sadly, I had to agree with her. The
woman known as Rainbow to her followers, and Susan to her family,
could have lingered under the ground for many more years had it not
been for the planned renovation. They say the Lord works in
mysterious ways. Even after all these years, Kyle’s bad behavior
was finally catching up to him. It made me wonder what his
punishment would be.

It also made me wonder how Susan
died. Was she strangled during some kinky sex game? Was her throat
slashed in some lover’s quarrel with Kyle? Did she fall and hit her
head during an altercation? Was her death planned out or did it
happen on impulse? Even as I asked myself the questions, I made a
note that I should try to wean myself off the daily diet of
“whodunnits” on TV. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about what Kyle
was thinking in the moments just before she died. Was it a thrill
for him? Was he angry? It was hard for me to turn off the musings
in my mind.

Detective Gertmuller called me at
the office a little after four, asking if I would meet the
forensics team at the bungalow, so I made yet another trip to the
property, this time parking so far down the street, I had to pass
all the news crews who were hanging around outside the house.
Several tried to block my passage down the sidewalk and force me to
comment for them, but when I got to the front yard, a young police
officer warned them off. I scooted through the front door, relieved
when it shut behind me.