‘Well, she was shaken,’ Muller said. ‘I knew she would be.’
‘That’s the difference between a city like LA and a place like this,’ Lorraine gushed, trying to get him to say more. ‘There’s no way a city police department would ever have time to go and break the news of a friend’s death personally to someone.’
Well,’ Muller said, ‘it isn’t usually part of the service here either. It’s just that I was driving right past her gates when I got the news.’
‘Goodness, how awful,’ Lorraine went on, hoping he would not guess that she was fishing. ‘So you had to tell her just a few minutes after he died?’
‘Just about,’ Muller said, eyeing Lorraine closely. ‘You a friend of hers?’
‘Not a close friend,’ Lorraine said, keen now not to talk to him for too long. ‘I know some connections of hers in Los Angeles and, since I was in the area, I gave her a call. I’m leaving now, actually — I’m just waiting to pick up my bags.’
She caught sight of Fischer coming towards her from the other side of the lobby with her case, and moved off to intercept him before he reached the desk. She gave Muller a final sweet smile, which she hoped convinced him that she was just an innocent visitor.
‘The number — I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you quicker, but the phones are still going crazy. It was Santa Fe, and the subscriber is Mr Nicholas Nathan.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ she said. And despite his previous strictures, she slipped a hundred-dollar bill into his hand. He watched her leave, then turned to Vern Muller who had joined him.
‘Who is that lady?’ Muller asked him curiously.
‘Mrs Page?’ Fischer replied. ‘She’s a private investigator working on the Harry Nathan murder inquiry. She said she was working with the police in LA and had full co-operation from you.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ the officer said. ‘If she has, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. She looks more like a newspaper reporter to me.’
‘Well, she’s gone now, whoever she is,’ Fischer said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Sonja tucked the comforter round Arthur: he was fast asleep and snoring. Sometimes he looked like a scruffy kid, and she felt such a touching warmth towards him. He took such care of her, and she loved him for it, had not realized how much until today. She moved quietly around the room, then went to a closet to select the clothes she wanted to pack and get out her case. She heard a car drawing up in the driveway and went into the other bedroom to look out to the front of the house. Vern Muller had sweat stains under the armpits of his blue uniform shirt, and was hitching up his navy police-issue trousers over his paunch. He tossed his hat into the rear seat, then looked at the house. Sonja saw him stop to admire her beloved garden before he set off up the path. She went downstairs and had the door open before he could wake Arthur by knocking or ringing the bell. ‘Hi, Mrs Nathan. Sorry to bother you again,’ he said, walking up the steps.
‘Not at all, Vern,’ Sonja said. ‘Come on in.’
‘I won’t, Mrs Nathan, if you don’t mind,’ the police officer went on. ‘I just stopped by to ask you if you know a lady named Lorraine Page.’
‘Well, yes, I do,’ Sonja said carefully. ‘She called out here yesterday. She’s a PI working for my late husband’s lawyer in connection with the estate.’
‘That’s the story she told Fischer in the hotel, but when I spoke to her she said she was just a friend,’ Muller went on. ‘She told him and me another couple of things that weren’t true, and she seemed pretty interested in this stuff about Raymond Vallance too — asked me if you were shocked and so on.’ Sonja kept her face impassive. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if she was some journalist come out here to dig dirt, or if you saw your name plastered with his across the papers,’ the police officer concluded.
If that was all Lorraine was interested in, that was fine, Sonja thought privately. ‘Thanks for warning me, Vern,’ Sonja said. ‘I’ll be careful what I say to her if she calls again.’
‘Something about that lady makes me think she’s looking to cause trouble for you,’ Muller said. ‘Take care now.’
‘You too, Vern,’ Sonja said, and closed the door. She leaned back against it for a moment. Upstairs Arthur lay sleeping. For the first time she had begun to believe that things were changing, that the dead hand of the past was losing its grip on her and a new life waiting to begin. There was only one person who could possibly stand in her way now — and that person was Lorraine Page.
Lorraine stared out of the window. There had been an accident, and the traffic tailed back for miles on both sides. They had been stationary for fifteen minutes, and the driver had got out to try to see what was going on. ‘Nothing anyone can do,’ he said, climbing back up. ‘They’re waiting for the recovery truck with a crane to drag two cars off the road, and there’s a third overturned. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen.’
A collective moan went up, and Lorraine swore — she had been cutting it fine anyway, and now she doubted that she would catch the plane. The frustrating thing was that all she could do was sit and wait. She had been unable to concentrate on the book she’d bought, about art fraud through the centuries, so she opened her notebook. There were a few leads she could take further, but she was really no closer to finding either the missing money or the paintings than when she had first arrived.
She turned to a clean page. What if Nathan had poured the money from the sale of the paintings back into his films? If that was the case, then there must be some record, but the investigation was cold. What if Nathan’s brother had worked the fakes scam? He was family, would have got a slice of the money, and might even know where Harry had stashed it. She had to see him.
The bus jolted, advanced a few hundred yards, Lorraine stared out of the window. One of the vehicles going in the opposite direction was a cream Rolls-Royce, which brought Raymond Vallance to her mind.
What had made him kill himself? She turned to a fresh page in her notebook. Harry Nathan — dead, shot. Cindy Nathan — dead, probably murdered by Vallance. Kendall Nathan — dead, accidental fire? Raymond Vallance — dead, suicide. Lorraine tapped her teeth with the pen. Was it all a bit coincidental? Could Sonja have threatened him with the videotapes? What if there was no coincidence, but intent? She grimaced.
The bus moved forward another hundred yards before it stopped again, but Lorraine wasn’t counting the minutes until her flight to LA. She had made up her mind that Santa Fe was her next destination.
Chapter 17
By the time Lorraine arrived in New York it was almost eleven thirty p.m. and her flight to Los Angeles had long gone. She booked into the Park Meridian hotel and started to make some calls. She had to arrange travel to Santa Fe, first thing in the morning, and she knew she had to call Jake. As she dialled his number, part of her longed to hear his voice, but the other part, knowing what she was about to say, hoped that his answerphone would pick up.
Jake answered the phone almost immediately it rang.
‘Lorraine!’ he said, pure pleasure in his voice. ‘Where are you? Do you want me to come pick you up?’
‘Actually,’ she began weakly, ‘I’m still in New York.’
‘New York?’ he repeated, unable to mask his disappointment. ‘What are you doing there?’
Well,’ she said, ‘I got stuck in traffic and I missed the flight.’
‘What a drag,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Can you get a flight in the morning?’
‘Oh, sure,’ Lorraine said. ‘It’s just that I have to make a detour, just for a day, to interview someone.’
‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘Santa Fe. Nathan’s brother is an artist out there — I think he might have been the one forging the paintings. I’m pretty sure it was him and that’ll wrap up the case — I mean, I can’t just dump Feinstein, I said I’d try to trace his art...’