“All the more reason for pent-up anger, but right now the only lothario I care about is Backer. Mr. Smooth. Coming out and asking for it ain’t exactly suave, let alone three women in the same office. But it worked, so what do I know?”
I said, “Sounds like Backer had a nose for emotional vulnerability. Think about the Holmans’ house: Ned’s got no access to the second floor, where Marjie sleeps. She’s an architect, if anyone could figure out a way to get him up there, it’s her. They’ve chosen to live physically segregated lives. It’s not just a matter of sex, it’s intimacy. And that’s what she says she got from Backer.”
“He tries a little tenderness, she falls right in.”
“My question is, if her needs were being met, why limit it to a one-night stand?”
He rolled his shoulders. “She lied to us and she and Backer had something serious going on?”
“That would threaten Ned Holman big-time. On top of being humiliated, he’s left alone physically and emotionally. We’ve both seen enough domestic homicides to know the pattern: The jealous spouse focuses first on eliminating the outside threat. Maybe I was wrong about Jane Doe being the target. What if the goal was to eliminate Backer, after all, and Jane was collateral damage?”
“Or,” he said, “Jane was more than a fling for Backer. Or both she and Marjie thought they were number one, meaning a woman scorned.” Grimacing. “Just what I need, a bigger suspect pool… freshening the poor guy up. Why wouldn’t she design him an elevator or something?”
“Plus,” I said, “her alibi for last night is meaningless. She went to sleep, got up. The same goes for Ned’s physical limitations because he could’ve paid to get the job done. Either of them could’ve. A pro job would also be consistent with careful planning, positioning the bodies just so.”
He worried a pendulous earlobe. “Stunningly Shakespearean, Alex. Now all I need is something remotely close to evidence, say documentation of a torrid romance between Marjie and Backer and either one of the Holmans paying a killer for hire. Hell, long as we’re dreaming, I wouldn’t mind a warm spot in Warren Buffett’s heart. Right now, I’ll settle for finding out who Jane Doe is.”
As I drove away, he phoned the crypt, learned the bodies were still in the delivery bay waiting processing. He squinted at his Timex. “Damn numerals keep getting smaller… two fifteen, let’s see if we can find Bettina Sanfelice and Sheryl Passant. If they’re working as well as living in the Valley, there’s time to make it over the hill before the rush. Also, I know an Italian place. You up for it?”
“Sure.”
As we rolled out of the canal district, he said, “Some victim I’ve got. That mix of glands and charisma, he shoulda run for office.”
The clown-show that poses as the California legislature had finally bucked phone-company lobbyists long enough to pass a hands-free law. The system I’d installed delighted Milo, because he can sit back and smoke and grunt and stretch and scan the streets for bad guys while he chats.
As I approached Lincoln Avenue, he began punching in numbers. No one picked up at Sheryl Passant’s Van Nuys apartment, but Bettina Sanfelice’s North Hollywood landline was answered by a slurry-voiced woman who said, “Yeah?”
“Is this Bettina?”
“No.”
“Does Bettina live there?”
“Who’s this?”
“ L.A. police lieutenant Milo Sturgis.”
“Who?”
He repeated, taking pains to go slow.
“Police?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tina’s okay?”
“I need to talk to her about a case.”
“A case? What case?”
“Someone she worked with was murdered.”
“Who?”
“Desmond Backer.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Ma’am-”
“I’m her mother. She’s out.”
“Could you please tell me where?”
“How do I know you’re not some maniac?”
“I’ll give you my number at the police station and you can verify.”
“How do I know you’re not giving me some phony number?”
“Feel free to look it up. West L.A. Division, on Butler -”
“I should do all the work?”
“Ma’am,” said Milo, “I appreciate your caution but I need to talk to Bettina.”
Silence.
“Mrs. Sanfelice-”
“She went to T.G.I. Friday’s.”
“Which one?”
“All the way in Woodland Hills, I don’t know the address. She likes the burgers, you’d never catch me wasting gas for that.”
“What was she wearing?”
“How would I know?”
“She doesn’t live with you?”
“She sure does, ’cause she still don’t have no job. That don’t mean I pay attention to her clothes.”
Click.
He phoned Detective Moe Reed, asked for DMV statistics on the intern.
The young cop said, “I was just about to call you, Loo. Prints on Backer and the female vic got run through AFIS but unfortunately nothing kicked back…”
“I already knew that.”
“You did?”
“It’s been that kind of day.” He spelled Sanfelice’s name.
Seconds later Reed said, “Sanfelice, Bettina Morgana, thirty years old, five five, hundred and ten, brown, brown, wears corrective lenses, no wants or warrants. Here’s the address.”
Living at Mom’s when she’d had her license renewed three years ago.
“Anything else, Loo?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Milo hung up. “I hear intern, I figure a college kid. She’s way past that, unemployed, stuck with that loving maternal entity. Like you said, emotional vulnerability. Ol’ Des had a helluva nose.”
The 101 freeway was starting to clog up so I took Ventura Boulevard to Woodland Hills. The T.G.I. Friday’s was like any other, which is the point.
Chain restaurants are easy targets of ridicule for expense-account gourmets, documentary filmmakers living off grant money, and trust-fund babies. For folks saddled with budgets and faced with a world that seems increasingly unpredictable, they’re temples of comfort. Milo and I had grown up in the Midwest and we’d both flipped burgers in high school. The smell of the grill still evokes all sorts of memories. How I react depends on what else is going on in my life.
Today, the aroma was pretty good.
Milo inhaled deeply. “Home sweet bacon.”
The interior was vast, chocked with corporate oak, stenciled mirrors, not-even-close-to-Tiffany lamps, red-shirted servers mostly hanging around because of the three p.m. off-hour.
A bar ample enough to intoxicate half the Valley ran the length of the room. The layout made it easy to spot every customer: a scatter of bleary-eyed truckers with no idea what time it was, a mom and a grandmom teaming up to handle a whining kid in a booster chair, two young women in a booth midway down, sipping tall pink drinks and picking at a plate of fries.
A kid in a red shirt said, “Two for lunch?”
“We’re joining friends.”
Both women were pale, thin, wore drab, short-sleeved tops, jeans, and careless ponytails. Other than platinum hair on one, they each matched Bettina Sanfelice’s stats.
Milo said, “The blonde’s wearing glasses, so I’m betting that’s her. Now all I need to do is separate her from her friend and get her to blab about her sex life. Any suggestions as to the proper approach?”
“There is none,” I said.
“Your optimism is a blessing.”
Neither woman noticed until we got within three feet, then both looked up. Milo smiled at the blonde. “Bettina Sanfelice?”
The brown-haired woman said, “That’s me,” in a tiny, tentative voice. Small-boned but full-faced, she had close-set mocha eyes and puffy cheeks and looked like a child who’d just been punished. The white-sauce-slicked fry she’d been reaching for dropped back onto her plate. Not a potato-something pale green and breaded-deep-fried string bean?
Milo bent to make himself smaller, showed his card rather than the badge, recited his title as if it were no big deal.