Head shake. “The movement of the gate isn’t programmed per se. Obviously when someone leaves, the camera will capture that image. Though I have to say the camera on the gate doesn’t pan widely, it just covers the drive.”
“Well, we appreciate your getting things moving for us.”
“Meaning?”
“It’ll be good to see your video feed so we get a handle on Ms. Soriano’s comings and goings.”
“There wouldn’t be much coming and going, guys. She was here to work.”
“She wasn’t allowed any breaks?”
“Of course she was. Two for coffee and half an hour for lunch.” Stoeller stroked his beard and took another look at the photo. “Did she leave the premises occasionally? I’m sure she did but she always returned promptly. I know all this sounds impersonal and elitist but you need to understand what it’s like for me here. I don’t sit around enjoying the ambience, I’m constantly dealing with issues — mostly with the rental properties — so when something goes smoothly, I ignore it. In terms of how often she left on break or where she went, all I can say is we’re not talking huge blocks of time and she didn’t have a car, none of them do, we’ve never had a single maid park here. So my guess is she took brief walks. You’re not thinking someone hurt her out there?”
Gazing at the gate. As if the notion of violence in the vicinity was ludicrous.
Milo said, “We need to cover all bases, Man. Now if you could retrieve the last month of feed from the gate camera, that would be great.”
Stoeller clicked his tongue. “Wish I could help you but I can’t set that in motion without authorization.”
“From?”
“Jason. And he’ll probably need to ask someone above him.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“You have no idea.”
“How long will it take?”
“Hopefully, not too long — I’m sorry, guys, it’s not my call. How about you give me your email and as soon as I’ve downloaded the file I’ll send it to you.”
“Thanks, Man.”
That sounded hipsterish. Stoeller probably liked it. He said, “My pleasure, guys.”
“Who’d the agency send to replace Imelda?”
Stoeller brightened. “That I can tell you right away — she’s here now, hold on.”
Darting behind the door, he closed it.
Milo said, “You find him hinky in any way?”
“Not really,” I said. “More like job anxiety.”
“My take, too. He doesn’t follow through on the security feed, I’ll change my mind.”
The door opened and Stoeller emerged with a woman around twenty wearing a pale-blue uniform and carrying a dust-cloth.
“This is Rosa Benitez,” he said, sounding as if he’d just learned a new fact.
Milo and I smiled at the young woman. Her eyes were huge, brown, terrified.
“Just a few questions, Rosa.”
No reaction.
Manfred Stoeller said, “She doesn’t speak much English but I do Spanish. Want me to translate?”
“Appreciate it.” He showed the photo to Rosa. “Ask her if she knows this woman.”
No need to translate. Rosa flinched and said, “Imelda.”
“Ask her how she knows Imelda.”
Stoeller rattled off rapid Spanish. Rosa replied haltingly. Stoeller said, “From the agency. They talked in the office a few times.”
“Why did looking at the photo make her upset?”
Same routine. Stoeller said, “She heard Imelda disappeared.”
“From who?”
“Other women at the agency.”
“Anyone have theories about what happened to Imelda?”
Rosa’s reply was rapid but quiet and Stoeller had to cant his ear closer. “No one has been told anything. That’s what makes it frightening. The unknown.”
Milo looked at me.
I said, “Ask her if she has any ideas about what might’ve happened to Imelda?”
Five hard head shakes. Saucer eyes.
I said, “Is there anything she can tell us about Imelda? What kind of person she was?”
Stoeller translated.
Rosa smoothed a strand of hair and looked off in the distance. Her eyes had moistened.
She said, “Muy amigable.”
Stoeller said, “Very friendly.”
Rosa talked some more. Stoeller turned to us, any trace of insouciance gone.
“She says it’s wrong. Someone so nice to have bad luck.”
Chapter 24
Manfred Stoeller clicked the black gate open and we drove out of the Aziz estate. Milo coasted to the end of the block and pulled over.
He said, “Eight days missing. Anyone taking bets she’s okay? So the question is where did it happen? What’s more likely, a Bel Air lurker nabbing her during a lunchtime stroll or she encountered a lowlife during her commute through a bunch of high-crime neighborhoods?”
I said, “Probability-wise, no contest.”
“What’s the ‘but’?”
“There’s logic and there’s intuition.”
“You’ve got a feeling.”
“Two dead women within yards of each other, days apart? You don’t?”
“I’m not seeing anything in common between them and Zelda was most likely an accident.”
“Bernstein came to that conclusion by process of elimination. What if someone deliberately fed her the colchicine?”
“Pretty resourceful Bel Air lurker.”
“This is the perfect environment for a lurker.” I told him about the coyote. “It was there one second, gone the next, no big deal for a human predator to slip out of sight. Ironically, the fact that it’s a high-end neighborhood full of security features makes it hospitable to squatting: huge properties, a lot of them rarely occupied. Scale a wall or slip through a security glitch and you could live undetected for a long time. If we’re talking a bad guy with survival skills, he could know something about foraging plants for all kinds of purposes.”
“Or he’s a bum with gout — scratch that, it’s a rich person’s thing, right?”
“Nope,” I said. “It used to be called the disease of kings because eating too much meat and shellfish can bring on attacks and the peasants didn’t have much of either. But anyone with a tendency can develop it. And now that I think about it, there’s nothing like chronic pain to make someone hostile.”
“A sore-toed, angry lunatic taking it out on the world, just what I need.” He drummed the dashboard. “You spotted this coyote because you were...”
“Running.”
“Ah,” he said. “A random exercise spot.”
“Fine,” I said. “You want a confession, here it is: I came back trying to get Zelda’s death and Ovid’s disappearance out of my system. That didn’t work very well and on the fourth day, I drove up to Bel Azura. The woman whose house Zelda trespassed happened to be outside. We talked and she told me something not on the police report: While Zelda was pawing the dirt, she cried out for her mother.”
“So your theory was right.”
“Right but useless. At that point, I resolved to really get past it.”
“Then I call you about Imelda and bring you back here. Hey, what are friends for? Okay, let’s get out of here.”
“Two women days apart,” I said. “Imelda worked here for months, making her an easily spotted target. And now I’m wondering if Zelda put herself in the crosshairs by wandering around for a couple of days. I checked the distance between here and Bel Azura on my odometer and it’s shorter than I’d figured, less than three miles. Meaning she could’ve easily covered it on foot. What do they sell a few blocks down on Sunset? Maps to the stars’ homes. She could’ve fixated on Bel Air because she’d convinced herself Mommy had been a Hollywood luminary, not a washout working as a call girl. Unfortunately, she attracted a predator.”