City of Angles, page 18
Then there was the issue of the tape that showed her arriving at the beach cottage. There was nothing on it from before the morning of the crime. It appeared to have been wiped clean.
This confusion was complicating already complicated departmental politics. Initially, it had seemed that the Ventura County prosecutors wanted the case, as it was so notable and this was where the crime had occurred. Then they seemed to be backing off.
The response of the chiefs in the LAPD paralleled this. Some said that the commissioner wanted to avoid it because there were officers and patrolmen who had joined the Church of Life, and he didn’t want to antagonize it. Others in the precinct insisted that the opposite was true, and the department’s top officials were eager to take on the case in order to show that the Church was not to be trusted. That would be the basis for a purge. Whichever of these versions was true, it was apparent that they and the prosecutors were wary. So Chalmers had no way of knowing if he would get the credit due to him.
In the meantime, he had been charged with looking into the “minor” details. Through these he had managed to develop additional leads. Each represented a chit. They were proofs that he could handle an important project.
He had uncovered one useful piece of information by poring through the records of the homeowners in Franklin Canyon. That had led him to a Garrison and Frances Hodgson, the couple who Vincenza said had picked her up. In their account of meeting her, she was a hooker who had tried to reel them in as paying customers.
Now it was two in the afternoon, and he was driving along West 6th Street, trying to keep a distance between his car and the jalopy of this Billy Rosenberg. When he parked in a lot near Pershing Square, Chalmers circled past him. The detective then exceeded the miracle of the fishes and the loaves by securing a spot on the street a block away.
Parking, Chalmers walked slowly back. Rosenberg was in sight, but so preoccupied that it was questionable if he even noticed the hint of rain in the air or the darkening clouds above them. Halting, Rosenberg gazed into the window of one jewelry shop and then another. They were in the downtown’s diamond district and the display cases featured engagement rings. Was he going to buy a square cut sparkler for Vincenza?
Chalmers stepped past the store. Out of the corner of his eye he saw what was happening: Rosenberg was inspecting rings while talking excitedly with the diamond salesman behind the counter. Watching him enter one of the shops, Chalmers felt a sense of elation. The pieces of the puzzle, he concluded, were finally beginning to fit together. If Rosenberg had participated in the killing of Selva and he persuaded Vincenza to marry him, then they could claim spousal privilege and refuse to testify against each other.
The detective’s thoughts returned to the process of interrogation they would employ. Would it be helpful in breaking Rosenberg if they waited before springing on him the fact that his would-be fiancée was a call girl who solicited couples in Griffith Park? Or was it even possible that Rosenberg was her pimp? The detective considered the idea. He certainly didn’t look the type.
Chapter 31
Two hours later Billy Rosenberg was standing outside the front door of a luxurious Mid-City apartment building. Pressing a buzzer, he was waiting for Claire Hesper to respond and let him in.
Yet she wasn’t expecting him, and she hadn’t seen him in three weeks. She was, however, expecting. Or that was what the at-home pregnancy kit she had bought at her neighborhood drug store told her.
When she had gotten the news five days earlier, she had immediately called Billy and left a voicemail emphasizing her certainty that he was the father. Then, a few minutes afterwards, she phoned him back. This time he managed to pick up. He had not yet gotten the first message when she abruptly declared that she was confused and that she needed time to figure everything out. It took him a minute to puzzle out what she was saying.
The moment was awkward. But, once he understood, he had told her that he was happy, that he was crazy about her, and that he wanted to see her at once and wished to hold her in his arms; though, if she needed time, of course he totally understood. Nonetheless, he had not immediately assumed that there would be a bris or a christening, and he had not purchased a ring at the diamond store off South Olive Street. Rather, he had been there to get some sense of the price of an appropriate bauble. If he had not known that pregnancy testing had advanced to the point that only a week after you missed your period you could find out why you were late for $8.99 plus tax, he did know that the tests could result in false positives, and that there was a great likelihood of a miscarriage within the first ten weeks. More, he knew that abortion was not just an option for a rich girl in Los Angeles pursuing an acting career. No, it was almost a given that at some point or other such a young lady might choose to flatten a bump that was a bump in the road.
Still, the news prompted reflection. This focused upon his respective feelings for Vincenza, Claire, and his ex in New York. Intellectually, he grasped that it was absurd to be thinking about Vincenza. How could he be? They had never so much as kissed, and he had no reason to think she was interested in him. More, they had nothing in common in terms of education or background, and even if she weren’t accused of murder her appearance would repel his parents. Between the pneumatic bosom and the Bettie Page haircut and stockings, they would consider her not just traif but déclassé. They would find her stomach-turning, something out of a reality show—a threat to the health, happiness, and, most of all, the bank account of their son.
Nor was his ex much of an option. The day before Claire’s call he had seen the news of her engagement announced on Facebook. This was painful, far more than he wished to admit.
Claire, however, made sense. He was approaching thirty. He was often lonely. His younger brother already had two kids. Marrying Claire was stepping up. She was smart and beautiful, elegant and ambitious. And rich. At the same time, she was obviously quite unsure about him, and the request that he give her time was more proof of this.
The spring equinox was a week off, and the weather was glorious. The air was dry and largely free of smog. The temperature was just above seventy, and the sky was cloudless. He was dressed in a nice pair of pants and wearing an expensive dress shirt and newly purchased loafers. He had taken the time to iron the shirt, and he had gotten a haircut. He also had a bouquet of freshly cut roses in his left hand. He could not but be aware of the irony: He was there to court a woman he had knocked up.
Was it a mistake to turn up in the middle of the afternoon when she had expressly told him to stay clear? His heart beat rapidly. His throat was dry. Fearful of pressing the buzzer a second time, he shifted his feet back and forth, waiting for her to respond, hopeful that she was at home. While he did not have a ring with him, he did have the flowers. More than that: He had news.
“Who is it? Is this the UPS?” Claire’s voice was unmistakable. The tone reminded him of her well-honed ability to assign everyone—lovers, friends, and furniture movers equally—to the role of the hired hand.
“Billy. I’m on my way back from the studio. Forgive me. They just told me that they’re buying my pilot script. I wanted to tell you. I figured I’d stop by. That your apartment was on my way home.”
She hesitated. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Naturally, you did, yes. But I’m afraid I can’t talk right now. Can I call you later?”
For a second time, Billy was made conscious: Matters were askew. He felt like he was going to throw up. It was as though he were experiencing her morning sickness by proxy. Her manner of speaking was that of someone on a business call discussing a rental car. The possibility that someone was with her was hard was to ignore.
Shifting his feet again, he held his hand more firmly on the button that permitted him to speak. He noticed then what he had not before: He was visible to her from the doorway camera. There he was in his nice outfit holding the roses. He had even added a dab of Brylcreem to his hair in order to make his bangs look fuller.
“How does six o’clock sound? I think I can talk to you then,” she said.
People told Billy that he excelled at writing subtext but that he was not as good at reading it. Even so, he was able to grasp one possible meaning: She was trying to get rid of him before the person with her walked over and saw the man outside her building holding the posy. Realizing this, he grunted out an acknowledgement and smiled into the camera. Thoroughly deflated, he started walking away, staring more at the pavement than the automobiles swiftly moving in both directions over it.
As his own car was on the opposite side of the street, he did not have far to go. But he hesitated when he reached it. He was stopped by a perverse notion. It was a virtual certainty that she had seen the flowers through the little monitor in her kitchen showing him at the doorway. The idea was simple enough: Why not walk back and act as though he were unaware of this, then mentioning the roses and asking to come up to give them to her so that she might put them in water? If what he thought was happening was taking place, then by appearing with the bouquet, he would be taking a bulldozer and ramming it into the structure of her relationship with the other man.
Placing the flowers on the hood of the car, he tried to think, watching as vehicles flashed past. More even than when he was writing, he had to pause and reflect. What would be the effect of doing this? Would it get him Claire, and, if she was with someone else, was he right to want her? Contemplating this, he was unnerved by a dark notion. Might it be that she was trying to pass his child off as someone else’s? It was hard to believe that she was so neurotic that she just didn’t want to see him.
Sighing, Billy turned his head about and scanned the street, wondering what he had gotten himself into. He was puzzled by what he saw. Quite plainly, there was a man half a block away watching him.
Chapter 32
“The roses aren’t for you.”
“I didn’t think they were.”
“You’re a reporter or a police officer?”
“If I was a reporter, wouldn’t I just have walked up to you with a pen or the mic?”
“What’s your name?”
“Chalmers. Ray.”
“Do I need a lawyer since I’m answering your questions?”
“You haven’t been answering my questions. I’ve been answering yours.”
Billy had to smile. The detective had a point. Still holding the flowers, he had crossed the street, advancing to the police officer, who was sitting in the front seat of his unmarked beige sedan.
“Why are you following me?”
“Is it so hard to figure out? You’re a person of interest in the biggest homicide case this country has seen in years. You and the Morgan girl both tell us that she met you the morning of the murder and a day later she’s living with you. And you’ve been stopping by the Lynnwood to say hi. It’s an hour wait to get into the jail, an hour to get there, another hour back to Hollywood. But you say your dick has never been closer to her than to Mother Teresa in her grave. Would you believe that story?”
“I can tell you it’s true. Aren’t you supposed to read me a Miranda warning or something?”
Chalmers rolled his eyes. Impressively, he still had not gotten out of the car. He was perfectly comfortable carrying on the conversation, it seemed, with Billy standing outside the vehicle, in the path of the traffic. Chalmers’s right forearm was perched on the wheel and his left arm was dangling outside the car with the window rolled down. “We don’t have to do that until we make an arrest. You’re not even officially a suspect.”
“But unofficially…?”
“Why don’t you come around to the passenger side and get in? If you get hit by a car, I’m going to have to write multiple reports, and I hate typing.”
In the past, lawyers had told Billy not to talk to police officers without an attorney present, but curiosity had the better of him, and he came around, opened the passenger-side door, and sat down next to the detective. He could smell spilled coffee on the imitation leather seat.
Chalmers gazed at him. “Who are the flowers for? Boyfriend or girlfriend?”
“Sort of a girlfriend.”
“She hadn’t invited you over, but you show up with roses? Some people would call that stalking.”
“OK.”
“You boned her?”
“Let’s just say I have more knowledge of her anatomy than yours.”
“You know that the Morgan girl turned tricks?”
“I know on the detective shows that police lie to people they’re interrogating. And I understand the courts say that’s permissible.”
“I heard it from a pair she tried to work. A couple.”
“I thought that the tough-guy thing was just TV, but that really is how most of you are?”
Chalmers smiled back at him, amused. “We see a lot of shit. Can’t but affect you.” He paused. As is often the case on especially beautiful Southern California afternoons, it was hard to be in a hurry. “She didn’t want to see you and didn’t take the flowers, huh? Why do you think that was?”
The car they were sitting in had an LCD clock on its black vinyl dashboard. The timepiece told Billy that it was a quarter past four. The sun lay behind them, and the people approaching them on the sidewalk were trailed by long shadows. Half a block forward was the entranceway to Claire’s building. The area in between was empty even of palm trees, and Billy was close enough that he could make out a man dressed in California formal—blue jeans, sneakers, a linen shirt, and a fancy blue blazer—exiting from the doorway that he had been standing in front of a few minutes earlier. As the man drew nearer, Billy received an answer to the question. From an internet search, he knew that the figure was the same one Claire had worked for. His name often appeared on movie screens before the main title. It showed up as part of the designation A Mike Fruchtman Production. It would then be followed by the director’s name with the required description that the motion picture was A Peter Kenyon Film.
Intently as Billy watched Fruchtman advance, he realized that Chalmers was reading his eyes and that he understood what was taking place. Billy could even catch Fruchtman’s self-assured self-absorption and his vague sense in walking past them that they must be a discontented gay couple, granted their silent discomfiture with one another and the presence of the bouquet, which was resting on the passenger side of the car’s dashboard.
“I get it. Totally,” Chalmers said, once Fruchtman had passed them by before seating himself in his Bentley, which was parked directly behind them. “I’m sorry. I could say that I’ve been there, Billy. But I don’t think I have.”
Chapter 33
Just after seven o’clock, Claire picked up her phone and searched it for Billy’s number.
She was wearing a chic bias-cut dress that showed off her legs and more than a hint of her small bosom. The outfit was in a 1970s style that seemed at once vintage and classic. She had taken considerable time with her makeup and her hair, but she had not yet strapped on her heels. Half-standing, her feet were on the floor and her buttocks were propped on her bed.
The time spent making herself look presentable had been a welcome distraction as the preceding three hours had been among the longest of her life. There had been a solid twenty minutes of sobbing. Then there was time spent with cold compresses and ice under her eyelids. These were employed to diminish the swelling induced by the tears.
Fruchtman had known she was pregnant for four days. During that period they had not spoken for very long. Mostly they had communicated through text messages. He was in pre-production for a film and working grueling hours, and, as he explained, this was much too serious to talk about over the phone. He needed to see her. He was thrilled, and he was crazy about her. That was what he kept saying. She had told herself that this must mean that he was shopping for a suitable ring and that they would do what they had generally avoided: meeting at a very public, fancy spot. More than likely, it seemed to her, he would make the proposal somewhere like Spago.
Waiting, she had engaged in a considerable amount of preparation. This wasn’t just anticipation of how she should react when she saw the size of the diamond. She was quite sure that she was hardheaded and realistic, and horrid as his marriage was, she knew that he still had fears and objections about freeing himself from it. Doubtless he was anxious about the cost of the divorce, and, although he had rarely spoken of it, she knew that he dreaded the effect it might have on his children. So she had run through what she needed to say if he engaged in more temporizing. She could point out that her trust fund and her future inheritance constituted a backstop of sorts and that it guaranteed that they wouldn’t have to move into a smaller house in a shabby part of town. She would make abundantly clear to him that she loved little ones and that she would be a good stepmother to the children he already had—as good as she would be a mother to their children.
She had been thrown off when he had said that he would stop by. But his voice was comforting and warm as ever, and when he turned up he looked as joyful as could be. A wonderful dresser, he was wearing a snazzy blazer and a baby blue linen shirt that was almost impossibly unwrinkled. His expression was adoring, and he took her in his arms.
The first thing he said threw her off, though. It was a winking declaration that they could finally make love without a condom. With that he drew her back, past the island in her kitchen, all the way back through the long, open room to her bed. Not sure what else she was to do, she proceeded to let him ravish her again, rapidly removing the clothes that she had spent an hour carefully draping herself in, and, as he was not a selfish lover and she was always taken by his slimness, his height, and his cologne, it was satisfying. Then they were in bed, and there was no way to avoid it. They had to talk.
