A Death In Beverly Hills, page 11
"I don't know who you think you are but--"
"That's part of your problem, Riley. You didn't take the time to find out who I was and what I wanted before you went into your asshole routine." Fontaine pouted like kid who's just been told he's not allowed anymore to poke the family dog with a stick. "Let's start over." Steve gave Riley a quick smile and extended his hand.
"Hi, Mr. Fontaine. My name's Steve Janson. I just met with your father and he gave me your address. I'm filling in some holes in your interview with Detectives Katz and Furley." Steve dropped a copy of Riley's police interview on the counter. "Now, do you want to give me a few minutes of your time to nail the bastard who murdered your sister or do I need to haul your ass down to some little room with plastic chairs and a court reporter for three or four hours? Your choice." Steve dropped the broken pencil on the counter and gave Riley his best tough-guy look. The kid broke eye contact and tossed the pieces into the trash. The pout still painted his face but now it was joined by a hint of uncertainty creeping in behind his eyes.
"When's the last time you spoke with your sister?" Steve asked, not waiting for Fontaine's agreement.
"I told the other cops--"
"I've read your statement," Steve snapped, ignoring the 'other cops' reference. If the kid, and that was the only way Steve could think of him no matter what his chronological age might be, wanted to assume that Steve was a police detective, that was his problem. "This will go a lot faster if you just answer my questions instead of arguing about everything. So, the last time you talked with your sister was. . . ?"
"Uhhh, sometime before Christmas," Riley finally mumbled.
"Sometime before Christmas isn't good enough. When, exactly?"
The kid gave Steve a surly expression, then lowered his head and muttered, "Two days before Christmas."
"What did you talk about?"
Fontaine took a breath as if about to complain that he had already told that to the other detectives, then he caught Steve's gaze and changed his mind. "Holiday stuff, what I was getting dad, if I was going to be home for Christmas dinner, what I was doing for New Years."
"What were you doing on New Years?"
"Hanging loose."
"'Hanging loose' doesn't cut in my report. Account for your day from eight a.m. December 31stthrough ten that night."
"You're telling me I'm a suspect?"
"I'm asking you to account for your time so nobody else can claim you're a suspect." Steve poised his pen above his spiral pad.
Fontaine gave him a sour look then began. "Okay, I got up around nine-thirty. The store was closed for the holidays. I had breakfast. listened to some music, watched TV, stuff like that until about noon. I got lunch at Fatburger and then went down to Funland. I drove the carts, go-carts, and hit the arcade. I did some shopping, had dinner with a friend--"
"Who?"
"Larry Spartezian. You want his number?" Steve held out the pad and pen.
"Go on."
"Well, okay, we had dinner at Jacko's on the pier, went to a movie, Dive Bomber, then hit a couple of clubs. So, does that get me off the suspect list?" Riley sneered.
"Sounds good to me. I'll give your pal Larry a call. Tell me about your sister."
"What about her?"
Steve sighed. Dealing with this kid was like herding a cat. "She's, what, five years older than you?"
"Seven."
"Okay, what kind of a person was she?"
"Very nice." The pout was back.
"I'm sure she was very nice, but I need to understand her better."
"What's that matter now? She's dead."
"Yeah, I know she's dead. That's the point, isn't it. Tom Travis is saying he had no motive to kill her. If we understood better what might have set him off. . . ." Steve tilted his head to the side. "She wasn't an angel, was she? She was human, right. It's possible that she might do something to piss a guy off, right?"
Riley's lips tightened and he gave Steve a sudden nod. "Yeah, she could piss people off," he agreed in a soft tone.
"Okay, tell me about it." Steve picked up his pen.
Riley glanced around the empty store, then leaned forward, his voice just above a whisper. "She had this way of saying she was helping you but really she was screwing you, like when your mother tells you that you can't go to a party but it's for your own good, you know what I mean?"
"Hey, I had a mother. She used to drive me crazy with that stuff. So, Marian was like that? How?"
"My mom died when I was ten and Marian sort of stepped in and took over. It was like my sister disappeared. I mean, she was only seventeen, still in high school and all of a sudden she's telling me I can't do this and I can't do that, do this and do that."
"That must have been a pain."
"I didn't mind the rules so much but it was the way she did it. She always treated me like I was a jerk who couldn't tie his own shoes. I figured that when I got older things would change."
"But they didn't."
"They got worse," Riley snapped. "Everything I did was wrong. And she'd get this look on her face. . . ." Riley's lips curled down.
"What kind of look?"
"Like I had fucked up again, just like she expected me to do. Like, 'Poor Riley, I really hoped you could handle this but I should have known that you'd mess it up. You're just a big loser and you always will be.' It was like she blamed herself for being stupid enough to believe that I could do anything right. One look at her face and I could hear her speaking inside her head, like she was saying to herself, 'Well, next time I'll know better than to trust Riley not to fuck everything up.'"
"That must have been rough. What about your dad? How'd he handle it?"
"Dad? Marian was his little angel. She was perfect. She could do no wrong."
"Well, fathers and their daughters--"
"I didn't mind that, him liking her better than me," Riley complained, "but, it wasn't fair, her turning him against me. 'You know we can't trust Riley, dad. It's not his fault that he's a fuck-up. He just is, poor kid.' I could see it, I could see what she was doing, poisoning his mind against me, but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't make any difference. She convinced him that I was worthless, nothing." Riley slapped his palm on the counter like the shot from a gun.
"One time, for his birthday, I planned this really great party. I saved my allowance for weeks. I made dinner reservations at his favorite restaurant, everything. I worked so hard. Is it my fault the damn car got a flat tire? What was I supposed to do about that?" The kid looked like he was about to cry.
"What happened?"
"What happened? The same thing that always happened. It all turned to shit! . . . I got out the spare and started to fix the tire and then Marian started in on me. 'Riley, you don't know what you're doing. Wait for the Auto Club.' I couldn't wait for the fucking Auto Club! We had reservations for seven o'clock. I had booked that restaurant two months in advance. By the time the damn Auto Club got there, it would have been too late. But she wouldn't shut up. She just wouldn't shut up!" Riley pounded his fist on the counter. "She'd keep at you in that sweet, fake-friendly voice of hers, 'Riley, leave the spare alone. Riley, you'll get your pants dirty. Riley, I don't think the jack goes there. Riley, you're a jerk and you're going to screw up again, like always.' It was all her fault. She got me so upset I couldn't think straight. If she had just left me alone, I would have fixed the flat, no problem. But no, she just couldn't shut the fuck up!" Riley pounded his fist into the wall and turned away.
"The car slipped off the jack?" Steve asked gently.
"Bent the rotor. They had to tow it to the dealer. It cost dad a thousand bucks. A cab took us home. Marian cooked dad his favorite dinner and gave him her present, which he loved. And I'm sitting there, with nothing, looking like a fool. What have I got to give him? Nothing! So, she ends up the hero and I'm the fool, just like always."
"Was your dad pissed?"
Riley gave Steve a heartbroken smile. "No, I was the idiot son who couldn't do anything right no matter how hard he tried, like the dog who just can't help peeing on the floor. 'It was a great birthday, thanks kids,' that's what dad said, but he was looking at Marian. Then he looked at me like, I'll never forget that look, like he was sorry for me. It would have been better if he had just yelled at me for screwing up the car. At least then I could have told him that it was Marian's fault for keeping at me, nagging, nagging, nagging, driving me nuts until I was so shook up I couldn't think straight but it was that look of pity, that . . . . If she had just shut the fuck up and let me do it on my own." Riley's face was twisted into a painful mask.
"Do you think that's how she treated Tom Travis, nagged him until he couldn't take it any more?"
"She could have. She was so beautiful and so nice and everybody liked her and everybody wanted her to like them and when she gave up on you, when she let you know that you just weren't good enough, it was like, you know, a knife in your heart, because you knew that no matter what you did, that she was done with you forever, that she would never, ever change her mind about you, that you had failed her and you could never fix things again. Maybe if she did that to Travis, I mean when your wife tells you you're nothing, that it's over, well, wouldn't that make you mad enough to want to kill her?"
Inside Steve's head an alarm began to ring. Had it been all over between Marian and Travis? Had she told him that she was leaving him?
Riley blushed like a kid who's mentioned a party that the rest of the people at the table hadn't been invited to. "I don't know," he mumbled, "I'm just guessing about what could have happened to make Tom mad enough to, you know."
"But there were problems in the marriage? She was thinking of leaving him?"
"Hey, I told you, I don't know! We never talked about personal stuff like that. We never talked about much of anything except her plans and how I fit into them or not."
"You weren't close then?"
"You're asking me?" Steve just stared at him. "I mean, if you asked Marian, she'd say, 'Sure, Riley and I are like two peas in a pod' but if you're asking me, no, it was all about her daughter, her stuff, her charities, her life. Never about me. Look at this place." Riley gestured at the empty shop. "This was Marian's and dad's idea of how to get me out of the way. 'Riley's too stupid to do anything on his own. He's too stupid to run a real business. Stick him in some little shop where he can't do any damage and can't lose too much money. Something that will keep him busy and out of the way.'
"Dad pays the rent and I can keep whatever's left over. I can sit here until I'm old and hobbling around on a cane for all he cares. This was her idea to get me out of the way, so here I am. You think Marian was such a wonderful person, so perfect, well think again. She could hurt people, she could make someone want to . . . ." Riley lowered his eyes. "She could make enemies, just like anybody else. Could she have gotten Tom Travis so pissed off that he'd want to see her dead? Oh yeah, for sure." Riley lifted his gaze, his eyes burning.
Steve stared at him for a long heartbeat, then closed his pad and held out his hand. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Fontaine. I appreciate your help. If you could make a list for me of your sister's friends, especially her girlfriends, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to talk with them to see if she mentioned any specific problems with Tom Travis. Who knows, maybe she told them about some threat he may have made. You can do that for me, can't you?"
"I suppose," Riley said with no great enthusiasm.
"Terrific. Fax it to me at this number, would you, save me another trip."
Riley examined the scrap of paper, then gave Steve a reluctant nod.
A moment after Janson turned away the kid was back scribbling on his wrinkled forms. Steve looked at the empty store, the cash register at the back instead of near the door where any merchant with half a brain would put it, the sign that should have been black on gold to match the business's name, the stocky dark-haired kid with muddy eyes and pock-marked skin so unlike his fair-haired sister, and wondered, as Gerard Fontaine must have wondered every day of his life, if some dark night nine months before his birth Riley's mother hadn't jumped over the back fence. And if she had, mightn't her pregnant daughter, Marian Fontaine, have done the same? Something like that could be a motive for murder.
Chapter Nineteen
The Killer saw Marian Fontaine Travis in flickers, skipping moments between consciousness and sleep when her face, just before he hit her, would slide across his vision like a fleeting reflection in a shop window. Then he would play it all out over again looking for the mistake, but each event was born in perfect logic from the one that preceded it. Sometimes shit just happens.
It always started the same way, with Marian yelling at him. If she just hadn't bitched at him with that condescending tone, hadn't given him that outraged look, like he was some no-account mutt she had caught fucking her prize poodle, he might have backed up, turned around and left, something. But she was so fucking superior, beautiful, rich, smart, and when she stood there and looked down her nose at him, like El Jefe chewing out some wetback gardener, well, he knew he couldn't let her get away with that.
So he punched her, BAM, felt her nose crunch under his fist, saw the astonished look on her face, like she couldn't believe anyone would dare do that to her. The second punch felt even better, a left hook that knocked her clear off her feet, and, as she fell, he finally saw fear in her eyes, the beginnings of the respect she should have given him in the first place. If she had only treated him with respect from the beginning maybe things would have been different, maybe he would have just turned around and left, but now it was too late for that.
As soon as she hit the floor, he knew it was too late. He'd gone too far. What was done could not be undone. If he left now the cops wouldn't be far behind and with his record and her being pregnant, fuck, they'd crucify him. She didn't leave him any choice, really. He could finish her with a knife from the kitchen but knives were messy. With all that blood some was bound to get on him.
Sure, there was a little on his hand but his shirt and pants seemed perfectly clean. She made a moaning noise and in a minute or two she would try to get up, and then things would get messy again. He'd have to strangle her. There was no other way. He looked at his hands. Most people didn't realize how much strength it took to strangle someone to death. And they struggled and scratched for a long time before they went. He didn't want any scratches nor any of his flesh under her nails.
His eyes lingered on the table lamp. A quick yank and the cord pulled free. Across the room she moaned again. Shit, she was coming to. Hurry, hurry. He rolled her over onto her bloated stomach and straddled her back, looping the cord twice around her neck. Then he wrapped the ends around each palm and pulled. Her head and shoulders rose a few inches off the floor and he relaxed the pressure, shifting his position until his right knee was planted between her shoulder blades. Then he pulled again. That was better. He had good leverage now.
She made little choking, coughing noises at first but they decreased and soon stopped. After thirty seconds all he heard was a soft 'aak. . .aaak. . . .aak' noise. He ignored it. Then she stopped making any sounds at all. He wasn't fooled. He knew it took a person several minutes to suffocate. How many times had he seen divers brought back to life after two or even three minutes under water? So he kept pulling, almost four minutes by his watch, just to make sure. Then he grabbed a towel from the kitchen and wiped his prints from the wire. Her head was in profile, one blind blue eye looking up at him. Soon it would cloud over with a gray haze. Inside her the baby kicked and soundlessly slipped away. Marian's tongue protruded limply from her open mouth. She wouldn't nag anybody with that tongue ever again.
He had to stop and think now, be smart. He had to get her out of there. Everybody knew about CSI. He'd put her where they'd never find her and if they did, by the time they did, they wouldn't find any evidence of him on her. Should he take her car? No, if anything happened, a flat tire, a speeding ticket, they might tie him to it. No, he'd use his own wheels. He parked it next to the back door, put her inside and covered her with an old plastic tarp. He'd dump that later too. There was a little blood on the hardwood floor next to the patio door where her body had fallen. He cleaned it up with Pine Sol then splashed it with Clorox for good measure. Everyone knew that bleach made it impossible to get DNA from blood. What else?
The lamp! Somebody might notice the missing cord. He'd get rid of that too. He looked around. Was there anything else? He took a deep breath but couldn't think of anything. He needed a plan. Dump her someplace, then get rid of the tarp and the lamp. It didn't seem like enough. There had to be something else, something clever that would lead the cops in the wrong direction, something that would make them think she had been mugged or car-jacked or something.
"Mommy?" What the hell? "Mommy?" A little girl in a purple t-shirt, kid's jeans and pink sneakers appeared in the doorway. He saw it all in one shocked glance. "Where's mommy?"
"She's at the store." It was the first thing that came into his head.
"The nice stores?"
That had to be the Beverly Center. "Yes, the nice stores. I'm going to go pick her up."
"Why?"
"Because her car broke down. You go back to your room. Mommy will be home soon."
The kid stared at him for about three seconds, then turned and walked away.
Another God damn loose end! Everything was happening too fast. It was all getting out of control. He had to think. What if they found her car at the mall? Maybe with a flat tire or something. The cops would figure she'd been grabbed there. But how the hell could he set it up? He looked at his watch. Could he leave the kid here alone? No way. There had to be some tape in the kitchen. Five minutes later, screaming and crying, Sarah was trussed and gagged with duct tape and wrapped up in the blue blanket from her bed.
