The Mercedes Coffin (19 page)

“She was absent a lot?”

“A lot — as in all the time. I hated her for it, but now I understand it. Sometimes life turns you into this person that you don’t want to be.”

“She’s doing okay now.”

“Yeah, she married well. Good for her.”

No bitterness there, Oliver thought. “How’d she meet her current husband?”

“Some kind of charity… at least, that’s the cover story.”

“And the real story is…”

“Probably in Vegas over one of the card tables.”

“Yeah, I heard she had a problem.”

“Had?” He smiled. “
Had
would imply that she no longer deals with the issue.”

“She still gambles?”

“Does a bear still shit in the woods?”

“Where does she get the money?”

“I don’t know, Detective; I don’t follow the vices of my mother. We’re not close. She doesn’t approve of me — my externals. Still, I wish her well.” He downed another shot. “No one’s perfect.”

“I could understand how she gets spending money now… Warren’s a very wealthy man—”

“I’ll drink to that.” Little raised his shot glass.

“Where’d she get the money to indulge her hobby when she was married to your dad?”

“I don’t know how much gambling she did when Dad was alive. He probably kept her in check. Why don’t you ask her about it?”

“I did, and you nailed it. She said it wasn’t a problem when your dad was alive… not much more than an occasional jaunt to Vegas.”

Little appeared thoughtful. “I’m sure his death unleashed all sorts of hidden demons.”

“Your father was well loved by everyone who knew him. Everyone said he was a straight shooter.”

“That was the rumor.” Little shot him a sneer. “What are you getting at?”

“He made a teacher’s salary, Nick. Your mother didn’t work. Your parents owned a lot of toys.”

Little licked his lips but said nothing.

“I’m just wondering if you had any idea where the extra cash may have come from.”

“I was fifteen.”

“I’m betting that nothing got past you.”

“I don’t know anything about my father’s extracurricular activities — or even if there were any extracurricular activities. Could he have been a hit man for the mob?” He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I was thinking much more low level, Nick.”

Again the sneer. “What? Like he was stealing the kids’ lunch money?”

“Drug pushing.”

Nick laughed. “It sure wouldn’t have fit my image of Dad. All I know is that he was always there when I needed him. For a kid, that’s all that counts.”

“What happened to the toys — the boat, the trailer, the camper?”

Little furrowed his brow. “Good question. They just disappeared from my life, same as my father. My mom probably sold everything to make ends meet. It was a good thing that she couldn’t touch our education fund, otherwise I could have never gone to an elite university and become the worthwhile citizen I am today.” He smiled with dark-stained teeth. “Can’t you tell?”

“I can actually,” Oliver told him.

Little took in the words and scratched his cheek. “I thought I’d love college. Living away from home and away from the townspeople with their pitying looks. More than anything, I just wanted to get out.” He nodded to the bartender, who poured another round. “Then I discovered that I liked chaos. It was fun… a real rush. Once I settled into the routine, I participated in every kind of protest known to mankind. Didn’t matter what the cause was as long as I could yell about something. Duke sure as hell taught me how to drink.”

“You went to Duke? That’s pretty impressive.”

Little belted back the shot. “I got in everywhere I applied: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth… all of them. My grades were okay, but I tested high. The key to my success was a murdered father. You write an essay on that and on your mother’s downhill spiral and how you hope for a second chance, blah, blah, blah. It’s the type of shit that those bastions of bleeding hearts eat up. Plus, I wasn’t a scholarship case thanks to my dad’s foresight.”

“The educational funds for your brother and you. Not to belabor the point, but where did that money come from?”

“I don’t know.” He took sip. “I always thought it was my dad who put away the money for the funds. But I’m now thinking that it could have been my grandparents — my mother’s parents.”

“Are you in contact with them?”

“I used to get birthday and Christmas presents. After my father died… I don’t know exactly what happened. There was a falling-out between my mother and them. It was probably over her gambling.”

“What about your father’s parents?”

“They were much older. They died when I was very young.”

“And you’re not the least bit curious about your living grandparents?”

“Not because I’m angry at them. I invited them to my wedding — the first one. They didn’t come, but they did send a check, which was honestly way more appreciated than their presence.” His eyes went to a faraway place. “The last time I remember seeing them was at Jared’s graduation from Columbia — or maybe it was at his wedding. Call Jared. He keeps in contact with them. He’s a good guy. He came out much better than I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“He made something of himself.”

“What’s wrong with working in a pit crew?”

Nick smiled. “Nothing. What I mean is that Jared’s more conventionally successful. He’s a real estate lawyer down in La Jolla.”

“Lawyers get into trouble, too.”

Nick laughed. “As far as I know, Jared’s managed to avoid the pitfalls, but I don’t know everything. He could be selling swamp land to little old ladies, but it wouldn’t matter to me. He’s my brother. I love him. End of story.”

IMRY KERIC WAS
a spectral figure. Decker could see veins through his translucent skin. Thick and blue, they coursed through his hands and sinewy arms and ran up his neck into his head. He looked as if he’d been wired for electricity.

Rudolph Banks had moved out three months shy of his lease, but he had left cash for the remaining sum in Keric’s mailbox. As far as the building manager was concerned, Banks had been a model tenant because he paid on time and never had any wild parties.

“Neighbors say he used to scream a lot,” Decker pointed out.

“Ech…” Keric waved his hand in the air. “Who doesn’t scream?” He inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. “He didn’t do damage. He left the place cleaner that my crew does. I don’t do anything. You see for yourself.”

Decker stepped inside and, indeed, the space was bare and had been scrubbed down: bad odds for pulling up anything significant.

Bummer.

He started with the kitchen: Banks had been thorough. There wasn’t anything in the cabinets, cupboards, or refrigerator. The shelves had been wiped down and were crumb free. The stove looked relatively hygienic. The walls had been coated with off-white semigloss enamel paint. In general, the hue yellowed as it aged, especially in the kitchen, where heat and fumes wreak havoc. But except for dings, the paint job appeared recent because the color was still fresh.

The living room had been done in a sage green, the paint as new as the kitchen judging by the amount of nicks and scratches. The nude pictures were gone, the nails the only indication that the walls had once been adorned. The wood flooring appeared recently refinished. Decker asked Keric about it.

“If he did it, he didn’t ask my permission.”

“So he didn’t refinish the floors?”

“No, I say he did.” Keric shrugged. “I don’t complain, though. It looks nice.” The manager pointed to an area in the corner. “There are some scratches.”

“The movers probably did that.”

“Maybe.”

“Any idea why he’d refinish the floors?”

“No. He had good taste. Very… elegant.”

“He wasn’t a very elegant guy.”

Keric shrugged. “He was always okay with me. Anything else?”

“Did Mr. Banks leave a forwarding address?”

“Maybe with post office, not with me.”

Then there was no forwarding address. Decker had already called the local mail station while he was waiting for the manager to show up. “I’ll just take a quick peek around the rest of the apartment.”

“It will take long?”

“Not too long.” He checked out the bathrooms: the counters and cabinets were empty. The bedrooms had been painted beige and brown, respectively. Tidy except for nail holes in the walls. “Are you going to repaint these rooms?”

“They look nice and clean to me. If no one complains, I just leave it as it is.” Keric jingled the keys. “We go now?”

Decker eyed the wood in the bedrooms. Whereas the planks in the living room floor had been done in a central diamond pattern, these strips of oak had been arranged running board style. More important, the flooring was obviously original to the building and hadn’t been touched in a number of years: dull finish and dirt in the open cracks. Not that it looked bad. It acquired a patina of its own, but if Rudy was going to do the floors in one room, why not just do the entire apartment?

“You are done, no?” Keric asked again.

“In a minute.” Decker walked back into the living room, his eyes immediately focusing in on the baseboard and shoe molding. It was also semigloss and white in color. The electricity had been turned off. Although the room had some natural light, it wasn’t enough illumination for details.

Decker took out a penlight. He squatted down at a corner and shined it in the area between the shoe molding and the floor. Carefully he went around the room, inspecting each millimeter of the crack. When he was finished scrutinizing the room, he stood up and repeated the process in the kitchen. It took up more time than Keric would have liked.

“Now we are done?”

There was a faint thread of hope in Keric’s voice. Decker hated to dash it asunder, but it was what it was. “Not quite yet. If you can bear with me a little longer, I think we can wrap this up one way or the other.”

“Wrap up… what is to wrap up?”

“I can tell you that just as soon as I do a small test with my kit.”

“What is kit? You make powder on the walls.”

“No, no.” Decker had left the apartment and was bounding down the stairs. “I’m just going to swab a few areas with a Q-tip.”

“What swab?” Keric was having trouble keeping up with him, so Decker slowed. “What do you mean, swab?”

Decker reached the lobby and went out to his car. From the glove compartment he retrieved a small cellophane package. “I found a few small stains between the shoe moldings and the floor in the living room and kitchen. This little packet is a presumptive blood test kit. It’ll tell me whether the stains are blood or not.”

Keric’s ashen face turned grayer. “Why would there be blood?”

“I’m not saying there is.” Keric was panting, and since Decker’s CPR skills hadn’t been tested for a long time, he walked at a more leisurely pace. The two men made it back up the stairs. By that time, Baker Culbertson had emerged from his warren and was lurking in the hallway.

“Is everything all right?”

Decker smiled and nodded. “I’m just about done.”

“He tests for blood,” Keric told the artist.

“Blood?”
Culbertson was aghast. “Why would there be blood?”

“I’m not saying there is. Let’s not draw any conclusions.” Decker paused. “You didn’t hear anything funny coming from Banks’s apartment Friday night, did you?”

“No, everything was quiet,” Culbertson insisted. “Not that I was home all of Friday evening. I have a life.”

Decker gave him a hard smile. “It’s probably best if you keep quiet about this. I wouldn’t want to start a panic in the building.” He turned to Keric. “That wouldn’t be good for you.”

“You here isn’t good for me.”

Decker kept his face flat. “Excuse me…” He went into Banks’s place, squatted and swabbed a small blotch on the baseboard of the kitchen. The Q-tip turned blue.

“What is that?” Keric asked.

“It means that it’s likely that the sample I took is blood.” He stood up. “It could be human blood, but it also could be from raw chicken or a piece of meat. Or it could be horseradish or potatoes. They’ll change the color as well.”

“So why you do it?”

“Because the kitchen and living room paint jobs are new, but the entire apartment wasn’t repainted. I’m wondering why.” Decker went into the living room, found a few faded spots that he had spied earlier, and repeated the process. Again, the Q-tip turned blue on each trial.

“More blood?” Keric asked.

“Looks that way.”

“Or potato?”

“Not so likely in a living room.” Decker took out his cell phone. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Mr. Keric, but I’m going to call down some experts from the Crime Lab. They’ll be able to tell me if it’s horseradish or human blood.”

“Why you look for human blood here? I get complaints that Rudy screams but none last weekend.”

“Mr. Keric, that’s what concerns me.” Decker went through his cell directory and punched in the number for the Crime Lab. “That Rudy moved out and no one heard a peep.”

THE TROUBLE WITH
calling after hours was voice mail. Oliver resisted the urge to slam down the phone and tried to adopt a zen/yoga/pilates/tai chi kinda what-me-worry attitude as an anonymous voice said:

If you would like to be connected to Richard Poulson, press 1.

If you would like to be connected to Annette Delain, press 2.

If you would like to be connected to Cyril Bach, press 3.

If you would like to be connected to Jared Little, press 4.

Oliver pressed four.

The extension started to ring, and when a human voice answered, Oliver was momentarily thrown off.

“Mr. Little?”

“This is Jared Little. Who is this?”

“I’m Detective Scott Oliver from LAPD—”

“Yes, the detective. My brother said you’d be calling. He told me that you’ve reopened Dad’s case.”

“Actually, we’ve got several people on your father’s case. Could I meet with you to talk about it?”

“Of course. I’d do anything for Dad.”

“When would be a good time?”

“Name it.”