Swingin' in the Rain (10 page)

  “What the hell is it?” he asked.

  “Sarah made it for Randy when she was about three years old,” I explained. “And I found it in that office on the bookshelf.”

“What does it mean?”

“What do you mean what does it mean? It means that had to be Randy’s office. Why else would it be on that   bookcase? And I found his brand of cigarettes in one of the drawers,” I answered as I turned on the windshield wipers. “And
that
means Randy worked there, at the very least. Maybe it was his club. I don’t know.” I was very nervous and excited. George seemed less enthused. “Don’t you think this is amazing? This is what Patti wanted me to see!”

  “It looks like a clay lump. How do you know Sarah made it?”

  “Clearly, it’s a dog, George. And I know my daughter’s artwork. Sarah gave it to him the last Father’s Day he was here. Before he left us.” I grabbed it out of his hand and put it back in my purse.

  “If you say so, Sweetie.” He didn’t look very convinced.

  “I do say so. I gotta call Jakes.” I yelled out “Call Jakes!” and I heard his cell phone ringing. His voicemail picked up. “Jakes, I need to talk to you ASAP. Call me as soon as you can. Everything’s okay. I just found something out, tonight. About Randy. Call me. Love you.”  I disconnected my cell.

  “He’s gonna be pissed,” George finally said.

  Boy, I thought is he ever!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  George directed me to Patti’s house, in the hills off Mulholland Highway. I parked in front, sprang out of the car and ran to the door.

  “Wait for me!” George shouted, moving more slowly. He ran to catch up, though, and when he reached me he was out of breath. “You don’t know who or what’s in there.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said turning the knob.

  “What?” he asked, coming up alongside me.

  “It’s not locked.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean it’s okay to go in.”

  “Whoops!” I said as I “accidentally” pushed on the door.

  “Wait, wait!” he hissed, grabbing my arm. “Call Jakes!”

  “I did call him, remember?” I asked, lowering my voice to match his. “He didn’t answer.”

  “Yeah, but . . . we don’t know who’s in there,” he said, again.

  “What if Patti’s in there and she’s hurt? Maybe she needs help?”

  “Then she should’ve stayed with us.”

  “Look, George, you can stay out here and wait,” I said.

  “Well, okay . . .”

  “Maybe somebody will come running out and you can deal with them.”

  I pushed open the door and stepped in. Behind me he said, “Wha—who’s gonna run out--hey, wait!”

  He followed me into the house.

  Patti wasn’t there, hurt or otherwise. Everything looked fairly neat, except a few of her dresser drawers were open in the bedroom.

  “There’s nothing in them, George. Check her closet.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “See if she’s taken her clothes out of there, too. Remember not to touch anything.”

  “Wha--? Oh.” He got it. “Okay.”

  I walked around the room, making sure to take my own advice. I heard George open a closet, turned and snapped, “Helloooo! Don’t touch anything! Fingerprints, remember?”

  “Then how do I look—oh, okay.”

  He slid the closet door open the rest of the way, using his shirt tail.

  “Not much left in the way of clothes.”

  “Maybe she split,” I said, opening a drawer next to her bed. Thank goodness it was empty. I was kind of afraid what I might find there. “I bet she ran back here from the club, packed and left.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe she saw somebody in the club who scared her. You saw how she was. Definitely in a rush to get out of there. But when she left us by that office, she knew I’d go in. Maybe she thought I’d recognize something that would tell me it was Randy’s.”

  “Alex, don’t you think that’s giving Patti way too much credit?“  

  “Okay, but Randy had been there, at least. The clay figure proves it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s look at the rest of the house and—“ My phone rang. It was Jakes.

  “What are you up to?” he demanded.

  “Hi, I love you, too.”

  “Alex . . .” I knew that tone.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “George, Tonja and I went to a club tonight and met Patti—“

  “What club? Why Tonja?”

  “If you’re going to interrupt me—“

  “Forget it,” he said. “Where are you? I’ll come there.”

  “Um . . .”

  He said, “Alex,” again in that tone.

  “We’re at Patti’s house.”

  “Your make-up artist?”

  “Right.”

  “Is she there?”

  “No.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and George.”

  “Alex, put me on speaker.” I pushed the little speaker icon. “Am I on speaker? Can you hear me, George?”

  “I can hear you Jakes! How are you?” George answered sweetly.

  “Did you break in?” I shook my head back and forth at George. “I know you’re shaking your head, Alex. Did you, George?”

  “No . . . well, not really. The door was open.” George was doing his best not to lie. “But we found out something.”

  “Okay, you two,” he said, wearily, “get out of there, right now. Go home. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Okay, but—“

  “Alex,” he said, “we have no way of knowing where Sam Rockland’s investigation is taking him. He could walk in on you.”

  “Oh . . . oooh, all right,” I said. “I’ll meet you at home.”

  “Fine. Oh, and Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t take anything!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “But he said to leave!” George said, seconds later.

  “Just a quick look around, George, and then we’ll get out.”

  “Alex. What about Rockland? I don’t want to get arrested. C’mon!” But I hurried away so that he had no choice but to follow me.

  Patti had a room set up as an office, with a desk, a computer, a printer and more.

  “Why does she have an office?” I asked.

  “Everyone has a home office, Alex,” George said. “We have one.”

  “Wayne’s a screenwriter,” I said. “He needs an office.”

  “Yeah, well,” he reasoned, “students, housewives, retired people . . . like I said, everybody’s got a home office, these days.”

  “I guess you’re right.” I didn’t have one. Maybe I should get one, too.

  George opened desk drawers, still using his shirt tail. “Look!” he said.

  He’d opened a top drawer and there was a leather bound phone book. It had 2008/2009 embossed in gold on the cover.

  “Let’s have a look at it.”

  “What’s the point? It’s from three years ago.”

  “There might be something helpful in there.”

  “We can’t leave our fingerprints on it, right? So how are we going to get it out of the drawer?”

  “Very carefully.”

  I tried using two pens to pick the book up, but I had as much luck with that as I normally did trying to use chopsticks.

  “Okay, wait,” George said.

  Once again he used his shirt tail covered hands and lifted the book out. I was able to turn the pages with my two pens.

  “Whoa,” I said, stopping when I got to the D’s.

  “What?”

  “Look here, next to this name.” I pointed with the pen I was holding.

  Next to the name “Davina” was a fleur-de-lis, hand drawn in black marker. It was badly drawn, but I was able to recognize it.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a fleur-de-lis,” I said.

  “You really think so?” He squinted. “It looks like she used a black marker . . .it’s kinda smudged . . . could be some kind of flower, I guess.”

  “Jeez, George.” He questioned the clay animal, and now this.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Probably that she met this person at the club. Look, there’s an address and a phone number.”

  “The way that club’s run,” he wondered, “why would she have somebody’s real address and phone number?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, turning the page, “but there are more. Look, one in the F’s, one in the J’s.”

  I kept turning, kept finding more.

  “Maybe certain people who met and liked each other exchanged personal information.”

  “That sounds like a good way to get killed,” George said, then covered his mouth with both hands, hoping he hadn’t just committed a faux paux and wished Patti dead. 

  “We don’t have much time,” I said.

  “Oh,
now
you’re concerned about time.”

  “I want to photograph these pages.”

  “You told Jakes you weren’t going to take anything.”

  “Taking a photo is not the same thing as physically taking something, George.”

  “How can you do that without touching them?”

  “There’s got to be some kind of gloves around here somewhere. After all, Patti is a make-up artist.”

  “You’re right! I’ll check the kitchen,” George rushed off, then returned with a pair of yellow rubber gloves. They weren’t as thin as the ones Jakes carried in his pocket for handling evidence, but they were the kind that allowed the wearer to pick up a quarter.

  I put them on and turned back to the D’s. The phone book was a binder, so I was able to open it flat and lay it on top of the desk. I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the camera icon. God, I love my smart phone!

  I photographed the D and F pages together, then the J’s and the M’s. 

  “All right,” I said, “put the book back and let’s get out of here.”

  The rain had increased, and soaked us as we ran to my Explorer. I made sure the cell phone was safely tucked into my purse.

  I wiped away water that was dripping from my nose. George was wiping his face with both hands.

  “Can you see?” he asked, as I started the car and turned on the windshield wipers.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll get you home safe and sound.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Heading out on Mulholland Highway to get back to the 10 Freeway was all downhill. If we’d been driving on straight roads the problem may not have materialized for a while. As it was, I knew we were in trouble immediately.

  “We’ve got a problem!” I announced.

  “What?”

  “No brakes!”

  “What?”

  “The brakes aren’t working!” I shouted.

  George said something else but I concentrated on keeping the car on the road through a turn.

  “Don’t crash,” George said.

  “I’m doing my best, George!  Dial nine-one-one!” I shouted to my Blue Tooth.

  “Nine-one-one,” a woman said. “What’s your emergency.”

  George and I started talking at the same time.

  “I can’t understand you,” the operator said.

  “George! Shut up!”

  “Ahhhh,” he screamed as we went around a curve.

  I told her where we were on Mulholland Highway and that we had no brakes.

  “Are you sure, Ma’am?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!” I shouted.

  “All right, I’ll have someone try to intercept you.”

  “Lady, I . . . have . . . no . . . brakes! I need somebody to keep us from crashing.”

  “Where are you on Mulholland?” she said.

  “We’re a couple miles west of Cahuenga, before Laurel Canyon. Hello! Hello?” 911 wasn’t saying anything. “A T and T dropped the call, George!”

  ”What are we supposed to do?” George shouted.

  “I’m going to do the only thing I can,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Slow down.”

  “How?”

  I couldn‘t explain. My voice was starting to catch in my throat. Besides, I didn’t know how. I had already taken my foot off the gas pedal. We were on a steep downhill and accelerating.

  I remembered seeing a TV show about what to do in this kind of an emergency. I started pumping the brakes. That was supposed to work.

  Nothing.

  Low gear, I thought. Somebody had once told me you should switch into low gear. I did, but it didn’t help at all.

  Next I yanked on the emergency brake, but whoever had  fiddled with my car had thought of that, too.

  “George, you have to help me!” I shouted.

  “How?”

  “Keep searching up ahead for an uphill incline, some shrubbery, a field, something that’ll slow us down,” I told him.

  “All I see is rain. I can’t make out anything else!”

  “There’s got to be something else.” If we struck a tree at this speed there was no telling how much damage there’d be.

  Thank God it was late. We would have already been killed after starting a twenty car pile up, but there was no one else on the road. The curves were the most dangerous thing, dropping off into dark nothingness on one side and smashing into huge jagged rocks jutting out on the other. It was dark, and the rain was coming down even harder.