As the van drove away, I got on my cell phone.
Milo said, “I can only imagine.”
“I’m back on St. Denis, please hold off commenting until I finish. I just spoke to the cleaners from White Glove. They’ve been working here around two weeks, meaning no more than two days after Imelda went missing. And Enid’s not here. Her lawyer’s managing the place.”
He said, “May I comment now?”
“Go.”
“Maybe the maid didn’t want to work at a place where a body showed up. Or she’d been thinking about quitting for a while and the body was the last straw. Or she’s on vacation. Or, since we’re being comprehensive, perhaps Enid decided she needed some R and R and took the maid with her. Like to the desert, again. Those types don’t carry their own suitcases.”
“The lawyer could confirm that.”
A beat. “What’s this barrister’s name?”
“J. Yarmuth Loach.”
“Sounds like a buddy of T. S. Eliot, do I dare eat a peach... hold on... yeah, here he is. Well-groomed fellow, very CEO... big downtown firm, he... specializes in... estates and trusts. Which could mean being a rich woman’s errand boy. Now the same question I raised about ol’ Enid: What’s my reason for calling?”
“I came up with an entrée to Mrs. D. but dealing with her surrogate would be even simpler,” I told him.
“Empathic follow-up because I’m such a caring cop?”
“You’re looking after the gentry. Rich people are accustomed to being catered to.”
“I’ll probably find out the maid’s sweeping sand out of Mrs. D.’s condo, but sure. Then I can move on to more profitable ventures.”
“There’s profit in law enforcement?”
“I was thinking spiritually.”
Two hours later, he called me.
“Mr. Loach was unavailable but I reached a rather talkative assistant. She had no idea who Mrs. D. was but when I told her I was looking for Mrs. D.’s maid on police business she was duly impressed, went into Mrs. D.’s file and pulled up the maid’s name along with an address. Alicia Santos was terminated after two years of employment the day after Zelda’s death, no reason listed. No driver’s license but I got a phone number. Another woman answered, Spanish only, so I got one of my sergeants, Jack Comfortes, to talk to her. Name’s Maria Garcia, she’s Alicia Santos’s roommate, and she hasn’t seen Santos since she left for work the day she was fired. She claimed she’d reported it to the police but couldn’t say which station. The home address is near Alvarado, Rampart, again, so I called Lorrie Mendez and there’s no record of any report. Did the roommate do something bad to Alicia and is trying cover up? Maybe, but Lorrie and Jack think an immigration issue is just as likely. I’m hoping she’s still around when Lorrie and I drop in.”
“When, not if.”
“Three women gone in less than three weeks? Yeah, the grammar says it all.”
Chapter 26
Detective Il Lorena Macias Mendez had cinnamon skin, honey-blond hair, black eyes, and a face that brought to mind Aztec carvings. We met up with her on Sixth Street, near MacArthur Park. A few grizzled men lolled hear the border of the park. Our presence cleared the area quickly.
Milo said, “Urban renewal.”
Mendez said, “New strategy for the city council. So fill me in.”
As Milo and I talked, she gazed at the lake, focusing on one spot for several seconds, then shifting suddenly and zeroing in on a new target.
Purposeful as a remote-operated camera. But she never lost the conversational thread.
Finally, Milo said, “Something in the park, Lorrie?”
“Pardon — oh, sorry, guys. Looking for junkies, used to patrol here.” She shook her head. “It could be so beautiful but it’s just a total dump.”
“Spot anything iffy?”
“Plenty of iffy, but not our problem right now.” Midthirties, five three, firm and stocky, Mendez wore a gray tweed jacket over black slacks and red flats and carried a black leather handbag. Nice tailoring on the jacket but you could still spot the gun. Maybe that was the idea.
Milo finished up and Mendez said, “Who knew a missing would turn out this way? I don’t normally do ’em but Imelda’s cousin knows a friend of a cousin of my great-aunt, et cetera. Moment I heard about it, I got a bad feeling. We’re talking a lady who rarely left home when she wasn’t working, had no vices or boyfriends. Obviously, I took a first look at the son and the daughter-in-law, interviewed them and picked up on grapevine stuff. If they’re faking grief they deserve Oscars, and no one ever saw anything but affection between them and Imelda. So I’d love to give them some sort of answer. But Mama being part of a twisted thing in Bel Air? You really think so?”
Milo said, “Too early to know, but Alicia Santos disappearing kicks it up a notch.”
“Two ladies gone from the same neighborhood,” said Mendez.
“The houses are literally minutes away from each other.”
She whistled softly and scanned the park some more. “Dope deals, right in the open, shameful... something happening to Imelda near her home I could understand. But the poor lady travels to the safest part of town and gets taken by some psycho? That’s evil. Are you seeing a link between two housekeepers and that patient of yours, Doctor?”
I said, “Haven’t come up with anything yet.”
Mendez said, “But who knows what motivates maniacs. Okay, so let’s start by trying to eliminate Santos’s roommate.”
The three of us got into Milo’s unmarked. As he started up the engine, Lorrie Mendez phoned Rampart Patrol and told them what to look for in the park.
Alicia Santos and Maria Garcia shared a one-hundred-square-foot room outfitted with an illegal kitchenette in a graffiti-abused, four-story dump on Hartford Avenue near Fourth Street.
We had no legal authority to enter anyone’s lodgings. But the building had been cited repeatedly by the health department and when Milo asked to get in, the plastic-caged clerk, a smudge-bearded kid with light-brown dreads and a name tag that read H. Galloway, shrugged and handed over a master key.
Not even pausing to lower the volume of the gangsta rap filling his compartment.
We climbed two flights of stairs and walked a quarter of the way up a linoleum-floored hallway that smelled of stale semen and chili powder. A flimsy door opened on another olfactory war: must, tobacco, and bug-killer vying with fruity cologne and talc. The winning aroma depended on where you stood.
Not much of a home but the space had been kept up nicely, scarred wooden floor swept clean, double bed made up with a pearlescent spread tucked tight and decorated with a heart-shaped crazy-quilt pillow. A pair of rickety nightstands had been polished with the Lemon Pledge that sat atop a listing dresser. Toiletries and feminine hygiene products on the same surface were divided into twin allotments. Off to the left was a quartet of photos in cheap standing frames.
Two of the shots featured a slim, plain, youngish woman standing between an older couple. The man wore a ten-gallon hat and a broad white mustache, the woman a shapeless smock. The backdrop was a tiny adobe house on flat dirt. Chickens pecked in the foreground. A swaybacked burro idled several feet back.
The third photo was that of a broadly built, heavy-jawed, crew-cut woman in her forties holding a can of Dos Equis and leaning against a peacock-blue stucco wall. The final image, larger than the others, featured both women smiling and hefting margaritas near the same wall. Taken from a greater distance, that one revealed a neon Cerveza sign above a rough plank door.
Mendez photographed each picture with her phone, checked the final products, and looked at the dresser, then at Milo.