Killer Commute Page 15

  “And God shall smite ye down with Jerry Falwell.”

  A few people stopped and stared. A couple stooped to scoop poop with plastic covered hands while runners and bikers too pooped to notice nearly ran down young mothers and baby strollers and dogs trying to sniff out the scene. There was something of a traffic jam on the beach path where Jeremy Fiedler’s memorial service took place.

  Car horns from inland, ship’s horns from seaward, sounds of seabirds. The chatter of the retiree wives seemed sort of nervous passing here.

  “As ye sew, so shall ye sleep.”

  And Charlie’d thought her dream surreal. If the woman in the long coat had come, she wasn’t wearing her coat. What else could Charlie identify her by? She’d had the sense that though the woman could outrun Charlie, the only people who couldn’t were in wheelchairs, and not all of them qualified, she was not young. Somewhere in middle age, maybe. And Charlie decided that sense came from the way the woman moved. She’d seemed slenderish, and her hair was shoulder length—it had swung about when she ran. She was tallish and probably white. Not much to go on.

  Larry finally mentioned Jeremy Fiedler and his tragic death. How horrible that it should be by another human’s hand. His voice sonorous and rich, his vulnerability and defiance barely masked by slick cynicism—ever the protection of those who don’t quite fit in. Even though more of them slowed down and didn’t even pretend not to notice, the passersby were giving him a wide berth. People who preach on the beach are gonna be suspect—get used to it.

  The three rollerskaters in the buffalo herd garnered quite a few looks, too. Sort of reminded Charlie of Secret Service dudes in disguise. They moved their eyes and not their heads—they missed nothing, except the man who’d crossed the beach and behind them from the street access. Ed Esterhazie, tall and distinguished, Detective J. S. Amuller, even taller and determined, and David Dalrymple, smaller but professional.

  “Weep ye not—all ye need fear is fear itself.”

  Officer Mary Maggie stuck a stick of gum in her mouth and pushed her glasses back up her nose. She was watching Betty Beesom.

  Betty did not look good. She had her hand over her heart. Since Charlie was the only mourner on Larry’s side of the walk and people kept walking between her and the others, she worried she’d lose even more control of the sermon on the sand. She was afraid to leave Larry on his own but he ignored her gestures to move across the path to the people who came to hear him. He was playing to a bigger crowd where he was.

  Mel watched two Spandex blonds in swinging ponytails and running shoes bounce by. And then Maggie and Libby noticed the burly tanned guy in Levi’s and a flannel shirt open over his T-shirt standing behind the three pseudo–Secret Service dudes.

  “… and the Lord shall impeach thee.”

  Charlie, on her way to Betty, was nearly creamed by a high-tech running stroller for twins with a St. Bernard tied to the handlebars beside a Spandex mom. She emerged safely (with a rude remark from the mom) to find Maggie and Libby looking at her while pointing to the burly guy in the flannel shirt. But when she reached Mrs. Beesom, he was not the problem.

  “I saw him. Knew I shouldn’t of come.” Betty stood up and clutched Charlie. “I forgot he’s still here. I get so confused sometimes, Charlie. I’m so sorry.”

  It was the guy in the flannel shirt who noticed Charlie’s distress over Betty’s distress first. Art and Wilma, held in shock by Larry’s strange beach preaching, weren’t far behind. Charlie felt she’d topple over herself trying to support the poor woman.

  “And the Lord said, Let there be Might, and behold there was Genghis Kahn and elephants, too. And Hitler and—”

  Shit, people on the path were beginning to congregate, hurl questions, congest traffic. A Monty Python Horror Picture Show—story of Charlie’s life.

  “And the Taliban,” somebody from the beach-path audience yelled. “Cover up those women and shame them—ignore their needs and lame them.”

  “You need help here?” Flannel Shirt asked unnecessarily. Art and Wilma and both Maggies were attempting to fan air in Betty’s face, eight hands waving between Charlie and the guy suddenly holding Mrs. Beesom up by the armpits.

  “Betty, who did you see?”

  “Hairy.”

  “Hairy Granger? He never strays this far from home.”

  “Jeremy warned me,” the old lady said before her eyes rolled up under swollen lids and Flannel Shirt picked her up in both arms.

  * * *

  “Didn’t seem like a very proper service,” Ed Esterhazie complained as they strolled to Manic Mechanics, in no hurry because they wanted to get there after J. S. Amuller and David Dalrymple left. “Was your assistant on something?”

  “No, he’s just an actor who can’t help but entertain people.”

  “I thought they were going to stone him there for a minute. Is he…?”

  “Yes. And it’s a good thing there weren’t any stones available.”

  Betty Beesom had revived before Maggie Stutzman and Officer Mary Maggie loaded her in a squad car to rush her to Urgent Care. Her heartbeat had settled down and she refused to explain to Charlie what she’d been apologizing so profusely for except that it wasn’t for talking about Charlie with that “nice Detective Amuller.”

  “That poor old lady’s lying about something, Ed, and it’s got her tied in knots. At her age she doesn’t need that, but what do you do?”

  “You don’t think she could have had anything to do with Fiedler’s murder?”

  “Jeremy’s death is hard on all of us, but her most of all. She had the most to lose by his death.”

  “Except his house. It’s hers now.”

  “But she didn’t know that—she says.”

  “That poor old lady is rolling in Sara Lee, Johnson & Johnson, and Exxon.”

  “Are they good?”

  “They pay dividends. Get enough of it and live at her standard of living and you don’t even have to worry about cashing in shares to live on—since she doesn’t have anyone to leave it to, anyway. She’s got no worries.”

  Charlie stopped and considered him. They were on a street corner she didn’t think she’d ever driven through. Now, the 405 and the 10 she knew by heart. The street signs had been destroyed but she was pretty sure they were somewhere in the vicinity of Wilson, Libby’s school. He wanted to walk and she wanted to talk to him. “How do you know this, Ed?”

  “I checked her out on the Internet. Or rather, Doug did. It’s scary how far he’s into this computer stuff. How comfortable he is with it, when it drives me to madness.”

  Charlie’s extraspecial, nonexistent other sense was perking up again. No, it was common sense—she just wished it would tell her what was going on.

  “Doug can just break into people’s investment records? Mrs. Beesom doesn’t invest by computer. She doesn’t even own one. I mean, she doesn’t use the library anymore because the card catalog is now a computer.”

  “But her broker does her transactions online. Her records are out there. Credit-card companies, and those wanting to target her for sales and I’m sure scams and—we’re all of us Internet-accessible, Charlie.” Ed was into yachting and had a deep tan and lots of dark hair that contrasted with the bandage on his forehead to give him a dashing appearance. “You, for instance, are heavy into Automatic Data and Stryker and Oracle. Doug looked you up, too. We’re all an open book.”

  “Except for Jeremy. If he hadn’t died, cyberspace wouldn’t know he’d ever existed.”

  When they reached Manic Mechanics—a plain, one-story stucco with two car bays and a big window to write the name of the shop and the hours on—Joe Manic was leaning against the storefront window, smoking a cigarette. He was the burly man in the plaid shirt. More importantly, he had introduced himself as Jeremy Fiedler’s mechanic.

  CHAPTER 27

  INSIDE, MANIC MECHANICS looked a lot like old-fashioned filling stations did before they were conglomed into convenience stores with gas pumps.
Joe replaced the cigarette he’d stubbed out on the sidewalk with a toothpick. He had a bowl of wrapped, flavored toothpicks and offered it to his visitors like you would candy.

  “I didn’t catch much of it, but that was some sermon your preacher was dishing out down at the bay. What religion is that?”

  “He’s an actor,” Ed explained. “When he’s not a secretary.”

  “Actor, right. Should have known.” Joe shrugged a this-is-Southern-California shrug and rolled the toothpick over to the other side of his mouth. “You another cop?” He gestured toward Ed’s tailored sweatsuit and spanking-new running shoes—like Amuller’s and David Dalrymple’s, none of which looked like they’d ever seen dirt, let alone sweat.

  “I was a friend and neighbor of Jeremy Fiedler’s, and I just wondered what you knew about him. Ed’s a friend of mine.”

  “Ed Esterhazie.” The two men shook hands, ignoring her.

  “Concrete—Esterhazie Concrete?”

  “That’s right. Do you work on Porsches?”

  Charlie looked around while they talked guy stuff. A TV up in one corner of the shop played Rudy Ferris’s talk show without sound. If you had to watch Rudy, that was the way to do it. It must be a repeat—he was usually on later in the afternoon. He was standing in the audience aisle berating some poor guy on the stage. Rudy would have looked better in black and white. His thin hair was a sickly orange, his suit a bright blue, his shirt yellow, his bow tie a bright red, and his mustache brown. Why didn’t he dye his mustache to match his dyed hair, or get a rug to match his mustache? A kid in overalls rolled out from under a fancy SUV, flashed gleaming teeth from a grimied face, and headed for the soda machine.

  “Well, all I can tell you is what I told the cops. I came to the funny memorial service because I recognized the picture of the dead man in the paper. Worked on his Trailblazer and the Ferrari, too.”

  “Did you get to know him well?” Charlie asked.

  “Not at all. He didn’t spend any time chatting. But I was real curious about him. Figured he was trouble, so I didn’t ask questions.”

  “That why you didn’t get ahold of the police right away when you saw the picture?”

  “Yeah, and the name was wrong. And the license plates changed a lot, and he always paid in cash.” He raised his eyebrows and grimaced so hard he broke the toothpick. “But I guess now that he’s dead I don’t have to worry about somebody coming after me if I talk about his business. What was his business?”

  “He was a landscape architect, or so he said. What did you mean, his name was wrong? He wasn’t Jeremy Fiedler to you?”

  “Jonathan Phillips was the name he gave me. I’d show you his signature, but the cops took the few records I have on him. That’s what was on his car registration, but if you can gin up false plates you can probably do it with the registration, too.”

  “Hey Joe,” the kid with the soda can and grease-stained overalls said, “don’t forget the limp.” And then he turned to Charlie. “You’re Libby’s mom, right? Somebody pointed you out at a football game last fall at Wilson. You were cheering the cheerleaders. You got the same eyes as her. I’m Pepe.”

  Pepe, too, had noticed sometimes this Jonathan limped and sometimes he didn’t.

  “He was a jogger, had injuries,” Joe Manic said. “I can’t understand people jogging but I sure can see how it would give them injuries. It’s the two names and paying in cash for fixing a Ferrari, for chrissake, and different license plates with different numbers—now that’s what’s suspicious.”

  * * *

  Ed Esterhazie and Charlie were at the Esterhazie mansion being spoiled by Mrs. McDougal and waiting for Doug to get home from school. Libby had diner duty after school today and Charlie was pretty sure Lori Schantz had some kind of singing club practice. When the housekeeper learned Charlie and Ed had had no lunch, she put her hand to her chest and expressed an “oh my” without speaking. A bottle of red wine, a carafe of strong coffee, and a plate of orange segments and another of pâté with crackers appeared on the small patio table on the west lawn as they sat on lounges in the sun protected from the breeze by gorgeous plantings everywhere, and of course here the flowers in boxes and on bushes and in ground beds were splendiferous.

  And if you’d come from Boulder or, even worse, New York, all this floral splendor in March seemed decadent somehow. Charlie was in Dockers and a jacket today but she took a sip of wine, turned her face to the sun, dipped a cracker in the pate, and sighed, lifting her glass to Ed Esterhazie Concrete. “Here’s to decadence.”

  “I’ll drink to that. When do we start?”

  “Start? Have you smelled that coffee?” Charlie poured herself a mug but inhaled the fumes before taking a sip. “How do you keep your figure?”

  “Liposuction,” he answered. “Better go slow. Mrs. McDougal is not used to having anyone home for lunch on a weekday, and I saw that gleam in her eye when she saw you.”

  “She didn’t like Dorothy.” The coffee had a nutty flavor as deep as Ed’s voice. The wine had a fruity flavor. The pâté was not, Charlie thought, goose-based. There was cucumber in it somewhere.

  “Dorothy was controlling.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “You’re not interested in controlling household matters.”

  “I wouldn’t be home for lunch on weekdays. Would have no time to interfere with anything.”

  “You’d be too busy to care about what she cares about most. Charlie, I have a confession to make—”

  “Oh, please don’t. This is the first time in my vacation that I almost feel like I’m on vacation.”

  “Okay. What did you have for breakfast today?”

  “Half an onion bagel and one cup of coffee. Why?”

  “Mrs. McDougal knows your weakness for eggs. I’m dating again, and you’re the solution again. What do you say to that, Ms. Hollywood Agent?”

  “Congratulations, and can I get a doggy box?”

  * * *

  Douglas Esterhazie was allowed to finish off the orange slices, pâté, and crackers plus an enormous sandwich and two glasses of milk before Charlie and his father led him to the study. Charlie’s huge doggy box of creamed hard-boiled eggs with firm asparagus and pearl onions in a paper-thin pastry crust was tightly secured in the fridge for her to take home.

  Charlie stood behind Doug with another cup of that wonderful coffee not understanding a thing she saw on the fast-changing computer screens as Doug smoothly moved from mouse to keyboard, often playing each with one hand at the same time.

  Edward Esterhazie’s study was a rectangular room that probably wouldn’t fit in the first floor of Charlie’s house even if you removed all the walls and added the patio. Two walls had French doors and mullioned windows interspersed with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and lighted art niches. The desk was in the center of the room where you could sit and look out at the lovely plantings and swimming pool, but there were no blinds and no bars—anybody could see you sitting in here, too. You couldn’t pay Charlie to live in the open like this, and you couldn’t pay Kate Gonzales to clean it.

  “Do you have to hack into every brokerage firm to find somebody? How’d you find Betty Beesom?”

  “There’s a general listing of all investors and their preferences and amounts invested,” Doug said. The screen kept flashing “access denied,” “improper coding,” and “subscribe now.”

  “Do you have to have a password or something?”

  “They keep changing everything to keep people out who haven’t paid up—brokerages and direct marketers and stuff. You just have to diddle around for a while and you can get through.”

  “Doug, who taught you to do this?”

  “I learned some from my friends and most on my own, just—”

  “Diddling around.”

  “Yeah, and computer games teach you more than you think—how systems work, stuff happens—you know. And if you know where to find them, there’s places on the Web that can walk you through a lot of
this. They come and go pretty quick, but the word gets out. Okay, here we go.”

  There was no Jeremy Fiedler.

  “Try Harry Fiedler.”

  “Who’s that?” Ed asked from one of the leather sofas where he’d been pretending not to be snoozing.

  “I don’t know, but Mrs. Beesom keeps talking about a Harry and I keep thinking she means Hairy Granger, the cat. But she knows something she’s not sharing, with me anyway.”

  “No Harry Fiedler.”

  “Try Jonathan Phillips.” While Doug diddled around, Charlie lapsed into a fantasy of standing in a reception line after a garden wedding outside those windows and—

  “Four of them—none in this area.”

  “Try Harry Phillips.” And Charlie stood next to Libby, who wore a gorgeous wedding dress and no zits, and next to her was a handsome, rich Doug who’d grown into his bones and—

  “Two in L.A., three in Sacramento, none in Orange County, one in Long Beach but not Belmont Shore.”

  And this well-dressed woman took Libby’s white-gloved hand and said, “And where is your father, dear?” And—

  “There was a Fiedler Enterprises back there. Companies invest.”

  “That’s it.” Charlie said. “That’s where Kate the cleaning lady got her checks from. And try Beach Enterprises, too.”

  And Libby said, “Oh, I’m a bastard—and here’s my mom.”

  Ed and Charlie were both breathing down Doug’s neck now.

  “Out of business or bankruptcy or NA as of last Friday, both of them. I don’t know what all these letters mean.”

  “And Jeremy died that night.”

  CHAPTER 28

  CHARLIE AND ED Esterhazie were walking again, this time to Judy & Gym’s Age Buster Health Club where no one had ever heard of or seen Jeremy Fiedler. Ed should never have bought those running shoes—they were like foot Viagra. Doug would pick up Ed at Charlie’s house by six and deliver Charlie’s precious doggy box. Ed promised to take his son to the diner for meatloaf if he promised not to touch the boiled egg and asparagus concoction.

  “Do you really keep your trim figure by liposuction? I mean I can see laser surgery to get rid of eyeglasses—well, almost—but suck out fat?”