Gone

“I’m glad.”

“Sometimes it’s still difficult,” he said. “Too much damned space on the bed- ah, enough mawkishness, if we sit here too much longer you’ll send me a bill. Here’s the message I left the fat detective: A woman came by three days ago, poking around that one’s pile of logs.”

Pointing in the general direction of Nora’s house. “I went over and asked her what she was doing and she said she was looking for her cousin, Nora. I told her Nora hadn’t been seen in a while and that the police may very well suspect Nora of nefarious activity. She didn’t seem at all surprised by that possibility- is it ‘Doctor’?”

“Alex is fine.”

“Did you cheat on your exams?” he snapped.

“No- ”

“Then you earned your damned degree, so use it, for God’s sake. One thing I detest is the ersatz familiarity the beatniks ushered in. You and I may be drinking my best single malt, sir, but if you addressed me by my Christian name, I’d toss you out on your ear.”

“That would be painful, under the circumstances,” I said.

He worked his lips. Conceded a smile. “What’s your family name?”

“ Delaware.”

“Now, then, Dr. Delaware…where was I…”

“The cousin didn’t seem surprised.”

“On the contrary,” said Beamish. “The possibility that Nora was under suspicion seemed downright syntonic.” He gri

“A-plus,” I said. “Any reason the cousin wasn’t surprised?”

“I pressed her on that but she was not forthcoming. Quite the contrary, she was eager to leave and I had to prevail upon her to leave her name and phone number.”

Another slow rise from the table and a five-minute absence allowed me to finish my scotch. Beamish reappeared holding a piece of white paper folded to a two-inch square. Gnarled fingers labored at unfolding and smoothing.

Half a sheet of heavy-stock letterhead stationery.

Martin, Crutch, and Melvyn

A Legal Corporation

Olive Street address, long list of small-print names, Beamish’s near the top.

At the bottom of the page, shaky handwriting in black fountain pen, smeared around the edges.

Marcia Peaty. A 702 number.

“I looked it up, that’s Las Vegas,” said Beamish. “Though she didn’t seem like the Vegas type.”

“She’s the Dowds’ cousin?”

“So she said and it doesn’t seem the kind of thing one would pretend. She wasn’t particularly well-bred, but not vulgar, and nowadays that’s an accomplishment- ”

I refolded the paper. “Thanks.”

“A little light just switched on in your eyes, Dr. Delaware. Have I been useful?”

“More than you might imagine.”

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“I’d like to but I can’t.”

As I started to rise, Beamish poured me another finger of scotch. “That’s fifteen dollars’ worth. Don’t sip standing up, terribly vulgar.”

“Thanks, but I’ve had enough, sir.”

“Temperance is the last refuge of cowards.”

I laughed.

He pinged the rim of his glass. “It’s absolutely necessary that you bolt like a panicky horse?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Beamish.”

I waited for him to get to his feet.

He said, “Later, then? Once you’ve put them all away, would you let me know what I’ve accomplished?”

“Them?”

“That one, her brothers- nasty lot, just as I told you the first time you and the fat detective came traipsing around.”

“Persimmons,” I said.

“That, of course,” he said. “But you’re after more than purloined fruit.”

CHAPTER 38

It took six minutes for the jail deputy to return to the phone.

“Yeah, he’s still here.”

“Please have him call me when he gets out. It’s important.”

He asked me for my name and number. Again. Said, “Okay,” but his tone said don’t count on it.

An hour later, I tried again. A different deputy said, “Let me check- Sturgis? He’s gone.”

I finally reached him in his car.

He said, “Vasquez wasted my time. All of a sudden he remembers Peaty threatened him overtly. ‘I’ll mess you up, dude.’ ”

“Sounds more like something Vasquez would say.”

“Shuldiner’s go

“Is the woman the coroner referred to you named Marcia Peaty?”

“Yeah, why?”

“She’s the Dowds’ cousin, as well.” I told him what I learned from Albert Beamish.

“The old man actually had something to say. So much for my instincts.”

I said, “The Dowd sibs hire their cousin as a minimum-wage janitor and give him a former laundry room to live in. Tells you something about their character. The fact that none of them thinks to mention it says more. Have a chance to look into the brothers’ private holdings?”

“Not yet, guess I’d better do it. Marcia Peaty never told me she was their cousin as well as Peaty’s.”

“When are you meeting her?”

“An hour. She’s staying at the Roosevelt on Hollywood. I set it up for Musso and Frank, figured I’d at least get a good meal out of it.”

“Family secrets and sand dabs,” I said.

“I was thinking chicken potpie.”

“Sand dabs for me,” I said.

“You’re actually hungry?”

“Starving.”

I parked in the gigantic lot behind Musso and Frank. All that land, developers had to be drooling and I imagined the roar of jackhammers. The restaurant was nearly a century old, impervious to progress and regress. So far, so good.

Milo had staked out a corner booth in the southeast corner of Musso’s larger room. Twenty-foot ceilings painted a grim beige you don’t see anymore, green print hunting scenes on the walls, oak paneling nearly black with age, strong drinks at the bar.

An encyclopedic menu touts what’s now called comfort food but used to be just food. Some items take time and the management warns you not to be impatient. Musso might be the last place in L.A. where you can order a slab of spumoni for dessert.

Cheerful green-jacketed busboys circled the cavernous space and filled water glasses for the half dozen parties enjoying a late lunch. Red-jacketed waiters who made Albert Beamish seem amiable waited for a chance to enforce the no-substitution rule.

A few booths featured couples looking happily adulterous. A table in the middle of the room hosted five white-haired men wearing cashmere sweaters and windbreakers. Familiar but unidentifiable faces; it took a while to figure out why.

A quintet of character actors- men who’d populated my childhood TV shows without ever getting star billing. All of them looked to be pushing a robust eighty. Lots of elbow-bending and laughter. Maybe the bottom of the fu

Milo was working on a beer. “Computer lines are finally back up. I just had Sean run the property search and guess what: Nothing for Brad, but Billy owns ten acres in Latigo Canyon. A short drive above where Michaela and Meserve pretended to be victims.”

“Oh, my,” I said. “Just land, no house?”

“That’s how it’s registered.”

“Maybe there are no-code shacks on the property,” I said.

“Believe me, I’m go

“Brad’s the dominant one but he doesn’t own any land of his own?”

“Not even the house in Santa Monica Canyon. That’s Billy’s. So’s the duplex in Beverly Hills.”

“Three parcels each for Billy and Nora,” I said. “Nothing for Brad.”