Obsession

“Financial? White-collar crime?” she said. “Like Enron? World-com?”

“Nothing quite so monumental,” said Milo. “I’m sorry but I can’t discuss the details.”

Mary Whitbread pouted. “Meanie. Now you’ve got me all curious.”

Leaning forward, close enough to kiss. Milo retreated two steps. Mary Whitbread quickly claimed the space he’d vacated. “All right, Detective, I’ll bite. Who’s this mystery person?”

“Patricia Bigelow.”

False lashes fluttered. “Patty? She died? How sad. How in the world did it happen?”

“Cancer.”

“Cancer,” she repeated. “That’s terribly sad. She didn’t smoke.”

“You remember her.”

“I’m a people person. My people stay for years, often we become friends.”

“Patty Bigelow didn’t stay long.”

“No…I suppose she didn’t…cancer? She couldn’t have been too old.” She frowned. “That little girl of hers…Tamara? Losing her mother…you’re saying Patty became involved in some sort of money- laundering thing or whatever?”

Milo ran a finger across his lips.

“Sorry, Detective, I just find people so endlessly fascinating. Used to work as a casting agent in the industry and boy, that was a lesson in applied psychology. But your job, glimpsing the dark side, it must be endlessly fascinating.”

“Endlessly. What can you tell us about Patty Bigelow?”

“Well,” she said, “she paid her rent on time, kept the place up just fine. I certainly had no problems with her.”

“Did anyone else?”

More lash calisthenics. “Not that I’d know. I’m just saying we got along dandy. Have you been over to the apartment she occupied?”

“The tenant sent us here.”

“Lisa,” said Mary Whitbread. “Pretty girl. Her father pays the rent. Beverly Hills divorce lawyer, he’s been financing Lisa’s adventures for years. This month it’s screenwriting.”

I said, “Who lived above Patty?”

“A young couple from…Indonesia. Or Malaysia? Somewhere over there. They had Dutch names even though they were Oriental…Henry-no Hendrik. Hendrik and Astrid Van Dreesen. He was studying for a Ph.D., some scientific thing, she was…some sort of salesperson…electronics was his thing, I believe. They weren’t as meticulous about upkeep as you’d think. Being Oriental. We always assume they’ll be neat, right? But overall, good tenants. They stayed four years, then moved back to wherever they came from.”

“During the time Ms. Bigelow lived here, did anything out of the ordinary occur in the neighborhood?”

“Out of the ordinary as in a swindle or a con job or laundering?”

“Anything you can think of,” said Milo.

“Out of the ordinary…well…we don’t have the kind of problems you’d see in a lower-income neighborhood. I do recall a purse-snatching, a poor old lady knocked to her feet by a Mexican-a busboy at a restaurant on Wilshire…but that was after Patty’s time…there were a few burglaries, but the police caught whoever was behind them.” She clucked her tongue. “Was it lung cancer? When she applied to rent she said she didn’t smoke. And I never saw evidence that she did.”

“She was here less than a year,” I said. “Why’d she move?”

“The rent was beyond her budget,” said Whitbread. “With a child in parochial school, it became a burden, though I don’t know why you’d want that.”

“Not a fan of parochial school?”

“Those priests? Every day a new headline. But that was Patty’s choice. When she told me she was having difficulties I sensed she wanted me to reduce the rent but, of course, that was out of the question.”

“Of course.”

“In the real estate business, Detective, if one wants quality tenants, one must be fair but firm. Patty’s unit was in terrific condition, tons of original features from the twenties. It didn’t stay vacant long. Two gay guys, as a matter of fact, and they lived there for five years and the only reason they left was they bought a house up in the hills.”

She frowned. “Where did Patty move? I was never contacted by anyone for a reference.”

“Culver City,” said Milo.

“Ouch,” said Whitbread. “That’s a bit of a comedown.” Her eyes shifted to a spot over his shoulder.

A black Hummer had pulled up to the curb. Whitbread waved. Put her hand on my arm. “My son’s here-is there anything else, Detective?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well then, nice talking to you.” She nudged me, smiled at Milo. “If at some point you are allowed to give a civilian some juicy details, please remember me.”

“Will do,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”

Clicking past us on red heels, she hurried to the Hummer and knocked on the passenger window. The glass had been tinted black. So had the grille and the rims.

As we pulled away, the driver’s door opened and a huge young black man in copper-colored sweats and matching athletic shoes got out. Midtwenties, shaved head, razor-trimmed mustache and goatee.

“That’s her kid?” said Milo. “I love this city.”

“Always surprises,” I said.

“Take a nap and your zip code’s changed.”

Mary Whitbread waved at us.

The giant did the same, but his heart wasn’t in it.

CHAPTER 11

“This is different,” said Milo.

We were standing near the dead fountain that centered the bungalow court on Culver Boulevard. The bowl was cracked, crusted with dead bugs, splotched with vaguely organic stains. A broken toy truck lay on its side. As we’d stepped onto the property, the children who’d been playing in the dirt had scattered like finches.

No bells on any of the units’ warped doors. Milo’s knocks had produced baffled stares, murmured denials in Spanish. What we could see of the units’ interiors was dim and threadbare. A stale, morose uniformity shouted transience.

“I can try to find out who owned the property back then but it’s not going to lead anywhere.” His shoe nudged the fountain. “Patty didn’t ask Chatty Mary for references because she didn’t need any for this dump.”

I said, “That could’ve been the point.”

“What do you mean?”

“She moved to keep a low profile.”

“Money wasn’t the motive? Scared of something brought on by illicit commerce? I don’t know, Alex. If she was ru

“I was thinking guilt, not fear,” I said. “Ru

“The alleged ‘terrible thing’?”

“A step down the residential ladder might’ve seemed a bit of atonement.”

“Punishing herself,” he said. “Not caring if Tanya got punished in the process?”

“Tanya said she didn’t care.”

“Tanya sounds like a kid who’d say that.”

“She does put on a good face,” I said. “But kids are flexible. The main thing would’ve been the relationship between her and her mother.”

“And now she’s alone.”

We walked to the car. I said, “Maybe the move here really was about saving money.”

“I

“Maybe we should narrow the geography down. If something had happened on Fourth Street, Chatty Mary would’ve remembered, so let’s put that aside for the moment.”

“Unless Chatty Mary didn’t want the neighborhood besmirched by tales of violence.”

“My guess is she’d still enjoy talking about a juicy crime. I agree that the murder on June Street is unlikely to be relevant and the only unusual thing that actually happened at the mansion-if you can call it that-was Colonel Bedard dying while under Patty’s care.”

“Not unusual-he was old.” He rubbed his face, like washing without water.

“What?” I said.

“If you want me to be creative, I can be.”

“Go for it.”

“An old guy suffering, a compassionate person-could think they were doing him a favor by helping the process along.”

“Euthanasia?”

“I told you it was creative.”

“If Patty had a tendency to play God, wouldn’t Rick know?”