Compulsion (14 page)

I laughed.

She said, “You think I’m kidding?”

At noon the following day, I met Milo up in the hills above the Sepulveda Pass.

Vacant lot, a mile or so above the spot where Kat Shonsky’s car had been found. Two K-9 handlers worked the brush between a pair of sleek, contemporary stilt-houses, running a chocolate Lab and a border collie.

Sharp-eyed dogs, beautifully groomed. Both with a thing for dead flesh.

Milo said, “In answer to your unasked question, this is one of the few open, unfenced spots around here. Which means nothing, she could be in Alhambra. But early this morning we gave a pack of tracking dogs a whiff of her clothing and ran them all over the neighborhood. Zilch for the first hour, then one of them raced up here and got somewhat excited.”

“Somewhat?”

“He changed his mind and got distracted. Happens more than you think. Still, better to be careful. So now it’s the cadaver mutts.”

“Who owns the property?”

“It’s shared by the two neighboring houses. Couple of sisters married to lawyers, they’ve got plans to build a joint swimming pool. Currently cruising together in South America for the last two weeks.”

“There’s your happy family,” I said.

“Not so happy if Lassie and Rin Tin Tin find something with maggots in it.” His skin sagged and his clothes were distorted beyond wrinkles, as if he’d wrestled with an intruder.

I said, “All-nighter?”

“Coma-time watching Tony’s place, went over to Kat’s apartment at seven a.m. Place looked like Martha Stewart had just filmed there.”

“Mom’s artful hand.”

“I called for techies anyway. No evidence of any violence or struggle but one thing Mom didn’t find was a Baggie of weed at the bottom of a tampon box. No credit card receipts, which would fit with ol’ Monica cutting her off. No phone records or tax returns, either, but Kat didn’t keep paper around, period. Not a single book in the place and the only magazines were old copies of
Us
and
Elle.
She did hold on to a few travel souvenirs – cheap crap from Hawaii, Tahiti, Cozumel. Snapshots, too. Her in bikinis, too-big smiles, no men friends. Like she got someone to take her picture to prove she was happy.”

“Sounds like a lonely girl.”

He yawned. “Anyway, I got the blouse.”

We returned to watching the dogs. The retriever was circling the lot with the intensity of a sprinter training for the big race. It stopped. Resumed circling. The border collie had lost interest and its handler led it back to the K-9 car.

“Dog’s life,” said Milo. “If nothing happens soon, I’m on my way to the boutique where Kat worked. Someone’s got to know something about her personal life.”

I said, “I’ve been thinking about the Ojo Negro killings. Leonora Bright was murdered only eight days after her father died. Her stepmother was terminally ill, making the sibs heirs sooner rather than later. A boilerplate will would split everything fifty-fifty with reversion to the survivor. Leonora was in her thirties, so there’s a good chance she never wrote a will of her own.”

“Scary brother gets rid of her to make sure she never sees a lawyer.”

“It’s a motive. And not that different from the one we’ve suggested for Tony Mancusi: Kill Mom before she changes
her
will.”

“There’s a specialty hit man out there fixing inheritance problems and both Ansell and Tony just happened to find him?”

I said, “I know it sounds remote but think about stolen black cars and costumes.”

“Theatrical traveling hit man… can’t dismiss it, but before I get historical, I need to focus on the here and now. If we can find some kind of link between Tony and Ansell, I might start breathing hard.”

“Donald Bragen thought Ansell was incapable of that level of violence because he sounded effeminate over the phone.”

“And Tony vamps. Okay, a theatrically gay specialty hit man. Bragen look into Ansell beyond his vocal qualities?”

“He didn’t even know Ansell’s real name because Ansell called himself Dale. And alibied himself for the time of the murder – working. Bragen accepted it.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Sheriff Cardenas said he’d look into Ansell’s background. I ran a basic search last night, got no hits on that name. The Dale Brights I found were a fourteen-year-old girl who plays field hockey at a prep school in Florida, a sixty-year-old female insurance agent in Ohio, and a Nebraska churchman and farmer who wrote a book about wheat and died in 1876.”

“My bet’s on the girl… okay, let’s make sure we’ve buttoned down everything-”

He stopped midsentence.

The retriever sat down.

Stayed.

The head showed first.

Kat Shonsky had been buried three feet deep, stripped of her clothing, stretched out on her back with her legs slightly parted. Her skin was greenish gray, marbled, slipping loose from its skeletal underpinning. White-blond hair served as a nest for worms. Where putrefaction hadn’t taken over, black hyphens were evident.

Probable stab wounds. I stopped counting at twenty-three.

In the grave was a purple silk scarf, placed diagonally across the abdomen and upper thighs. Removing it revealed Katrina Shonsky’s driver’s license. Wedged between her labia.

“There’s a statement for you,” said Diana Ponce, the C.I. kneeling above the body.

Milo said, “Look what I did.”

“And I want the whole world to know it.”

Ponce bagged the license and called for a large envelope for the scarf. While she waited, she inspected Katrina Shonsky’s neck. No obvious ligature marks but there wasn’t much neck left and the final say would be the coroner’s.

Placing the scarf back on the body, she cupped the remains of the head gently in one hand and probed with the other. “There’s bone breakage at the back, Milo. Want to feel it?”

Milo got down next to her, and she guided his gloved hand.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Like cracked eggshell.”

“Someone bopped her good,” said Ponce. “Maybe to knock her out before he cut her?” She looked up at the twin houses. “This close to private property, you’d want to keep things quiet.”

Milo stood. “You should be a detective, Diana.”

She grinned. “According to the tube, I already am.”

The envelope arrived. Setting the head down with reverence, Ponce removed the scarf and unfurled it. Diaphonous thing; it waved in the breeze.

“Louis Vuitton label.”

Milo said, “I thought they did luggage.”

“They do everything, Lieutenant.” Ponce admired the silk. The breeze blew harder and a few granules of dirt slid off the garment and spattered the body. Ponce handed the scarf off and used tweezers to recover them.

Milo said, “Costs a fortune but it was left here.”

Perfect opening for one of those jokes cops and techs sometimes tell to buffer the horror.

This time, no one did.

Crypt attendants wrapped the body in plastic and took it away. Moments later Diana Ponce left and the criminalists got to work.

Milo said, “Time to get over to Monica Hedges. You can meet me there if you want.”

“Sure.”

I followed him to Wilshire, turned left. At Warner he pulled over, motioned me to do the same.

“Aborted mission. No answer at the Hedges, not exactly the time to leave a message. Let’s check out the place where Kat worked. You’re a fashionable guy.”

“Not really.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you could interpret.”

La Femme Boutique was on San Vicente west of Barrington, squeezed between a coffee emporium specializing in Indonesian brew and a hair salon crowded with beautiful heads.

The shop was high, narrow, and white, hung with vintage absinthe posters and floored in weathered, wine-colored marble. The few pieces of furniture were heavy and Victorian, the clothes in the window frothy and fitted to malnourished mannequins.

No shoppers in sight. Milo and I passed through a narrow aisle walled by double-high racks. Some of the dresses and tops were marked
Sale,
which put them into three figures.

Edith Piaf on the stereo,
Made in France
on the labels.

Designers I’d never heard of, but that meant nothing.

He said, “I didn’t look that closely at the stuff in Kat’s pad but it wasn’t like this. She didn’t have any scarves, either – hey, how’s it going?”

Addressing a hollow-cheeked brunette in a black lace top, sitting behind the sales counter, drinking Evian and reading
InStyle.
Behind her was a high shelf of bath toys, fruit-shaped candles, pastes and gels that wouldn’t get past airport security.

She got up and glided around the counter, head back, hips leading, like a runway model. Thirty, give or take, with deeply shadowed dark eyes. Makeup thick as cake frosting worked at masking a complexion not much better than Milo’s. The black top was tucked tight into cream calfskin jeans.

“Hey, guys. Someone buying a guilt gift or are we talking birthday?”

Milo tugged his lapel to one side and revealed his shield. “Police. Katrina Shonsky’s body was just found a few miles away. She was murdered.”

Hollow cheeks puffed. Eyelids vibrated. “Omigod, omigod – Kat!”

She bent at the knees. I caught her elbow, walked her to a puce velvet divan. Milo fetched her water bottle and dribbled some between her lips.

She gulped. Started to hyperventilate. I returned to the counter and got a shopping bag printed with the store’s name. By the time I got back, she was breathing normally and talking to Milo.

Her name was Amy Koutsakas but she called herself Amelie, had been working with Kat Shonsky for just over a year. At first she sang the dead woman’s praises. We sat that out and let the shock wear off and soon she was confiding that she and Kat hadn’t been close. “Not that I’m bad-mouthing her. God forbid.”

Milo said, “You guys just didn’t hit it off.”

“We never fought, but to be honest, Lieutenant, we had different professional views.”

“Of what?”

“This job. Kat could be tactless.”

“With you or the customers?”

“Both,” said Amelie. “I’m not saying she went out of her way to be mean, it just… I don’t know what I’m really saying. Sorry. I can’t believe this…”

I said, “Kat was sharp-tongued.”

“She was – sometimes it was what she
didn’t
say. To the customers.”

“Not good at stroking egos.”

She sat up straight. “To be honest, guys, this business is all about fear. Most of our clientele is mature, who else can afford the prices? We’re talking about used-to-be size eights who are now fourteens. When you get older your body changes. I know, because my mom was a dancer and that happened to her.”

Stroking her own flat-plane abdomen.

Milo said, “Kat didn’t understand that.”

“We get lots of women coming in for special occasions. Wanting to look really fabulous and ready to pay for it. Sometimes it’s a challenge but you need to work with the customer. You examine her assets and liabilities without being obvious, guide her toward stuff that’ll minimize her issues. If she tries on something and it turns out horrible, you say something nice and ease her toward something else.”

“Applied psychology,” said Milo.

“I was a psych major in college and believe me, it helps.”

I said, “Kat didn’t take that approach.”

“Kat thought her job was to help carry garments to the dressing room and stand around examining her nails during the try-on. She’d never volunteer an opinion. Never. Even when the client was obviously needy – crying out for validation. I tried to tell her we were more than attendants. Her answer was ‘These are grown-ups, they can make their own choices.’ But that’s not fair. People need support, right? Even if something looked
good
Kat would just stand there and say nothing. She gave no
guidance
and that led to customers bringing a lot of her sales back. Returns come straight off the commission.”

Milo said, “Do you guys split commission?”

“That’s the way it used to be but I told the owners no way would I split with someone like Kat. They value me so they agreed and I ended up making around three times as much as Kat.”

“Is commission a big part of your salary?”

“Seventy percent.”

“So Kat wasn’t exactly raking it in.”

“And boy did she complain about that. Constantly. It made no sense. All she had to do was be nice.” She bit her lip. “I know it sounds like I’m putting her down but that’s the way it was. That’s why after she stopped coming in and didn’t return calls, the owners figured she’d flaked out. After three days, they fired her.”

“Who are the owners?” said Milo.

“Mr. and Mrs. Leibowitz,” she said. “They made money in the florist business and retired. It started as a hobby for Laura – Mrs. L. They’d travel to Paris each year and she’d bring back great stuff that her friends adored.”

“We talking absentee owners?”

“For the most part. I’m the manager and Kat is – was the assistant manager.” Past tense made her flinch. “Do you have any idea who did it?”

“Not yet,” said Milo. “That’s why we’re here.”

“I can’t imagine who would do something like that.”

“Kat ever get into an altercation with a customer? Or anyone else?”

“No, no, our clientele is sophisticated.
Nice
women.”

“What about the men in Kat’s life?”

“Never met any of them,” she said, “but from what she said she’d been through plenty of losers and was swearing off men.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Uh-uh, we never got to the name level. She’d just make remarks. She was a big one for remarks.”

“About men?”

“Men, her job, life in general. Her mother – she talked about her mother a lot. Said there was all kinds of pressure to conform and she hated it. From what I could tell, she had an unhappy childhood. Basically, she struck me as an unhappy person. That’s probably why she drank.”

“On the job?”

Silence.

“Amelie?”

“Sometimes she’d come in with way too much mint on her breath. A couple of times she forgot the mint and I smelled the alcohol. I started keeping mouthwash for her.”

“Partying hard?”