Compulsion (5 page)

A sign in the window said,
In case of problems check with Avakian Dry Cleaners next door.

At the cleaners, a man unraveled a pile of crumpled shirts and said, “Yes,” without looking up. William Saroyan mustache, quick hands.

“Police. We’re looking for one of your box holders. Anthony Mancusi.”

Time to look up. “Tony? He brings his bulk laundry here. With the price of water and soap, we can do it just as cheap and you don’t need your own machine. What’s up with Tony?”

“His mother died, Mr…”

“Bedros Avakian.” Tongue click. “Died, huh? Too bad. So how come the police are here?”

“It wasn’t a natural death.”

“Oh… that’s real bad.”

“Could we have that address, please?”

“Yah, yeah, hold on, I get it for you.”

Avakian walked to a small desk and clicked a laptop. “Got a pen? Give Tony my condolences.”

Anthony Mancusi Jr.’s new digs were in a grubby three-story box on Rodney Drive, not far from the strip mall. No landscaping, no charm, inquiries to be directed to a real estate firm in Downey.

The front door was key-locked. The directory listed eighteen tenants, each with a mail slot. No one answered at
A. Mancusi
’s unit.

I said “Bit of a step-down from his last place. That and his mother taking on more of his rent says money issues.”

Milo tried the button again, pulled out a business card, and dropped it into Mancusi’s mail slot. “Let’s get over to the rental lot.”

As we headed for the car, movement up the block caught my eye. A man in a short-sleeved white shirt and brown pants shambled toward us.

Less hair than two years ago, the blond tint was peroxide, and he’d put on weight in all the predictable places. But this was the man not thrilled to pose with his mother.

Milo told me to wait there and went up to greet him. The glint of the gold shield caused Tony Mancusi’s head to retract, as if he’d been slapped.

Milo said something.

Mancusi clapped both sides of his own head.

His mouth opened and the mewling that emerged filled my head with an image: animals shackled in the slaughterhouse.

The end of hope.

Tony Mancusi’s hands shook as he fought to get his key into the lock. When he dropped it the second time, I took over. Once we were inside the grimy little room he called home, he braced himself against a wall and wailed.

Milo watched him, impassive as a garden gnome.

Some detectives put a lot of stock in people’s initial reactions to bad news, suspecting the too-stoic loved one, as well as the scenery-chewing hysteric.

I reserve judgment because I’ve seen rape victims blasé to the point of flippancy, innocent bystanders twitching with what
had
to be guilt, psychopaths offering renditions of shock and grief so convincing you wanted to cuddle them and feed them soup.

But it was hard not to be impressed with the heaving of Mancusi’s rounded shoulders and the racking squalls that nearly lifted him off a threadbare ottoman. Behind him was a wall fitted with a Murphy bed.

Ella Mancusi had baked her own birthday cake. Maybe her son was remembering.

When he stopped for breath, Milo said, “We’re sorry for your loss, sir.”

Mancusi worked himself to his feet. The change in his complexion was sudden and convincing.

From indoor pallor to green around the edges.

He hurtled six feet to a shabby kitchenette and vomited into the sink.

When the heaves stopped, he splashed water onto his face, returned to the ottoman with raw eyes and strands of pale hair plastered to a greasy forehead. A fleck of vomit had landed on his shirt, just beneath a wrinkled collar.

Milo said, “I know this is a hard time to talk, but if there’s anything you can tell us-”

“What could I
tell
you!”

“Is there anyone – anyone at all – who’d want to hurt your mother?”

“Who?”

“That’s what we’re-”

“She was a
teacher
!” said Mancusi.

“She retired-”

“They gave her an
award
! She was tough, but fair, everyone loved her.” He wagged a finger. “Want the
grade
? Do your
work
! That was her motto.”

I wondered how that had meshed with a son who lived on disability and borrowed rent money.

C student, if he applied himself.

Milo said, “So there’s no one you can think of.”

“No. This is… this is insane.”

The vomit fleck fell to the carpet, inches from Milo’s desert boot.

“Insane nightmare.” Mancusi lowered his head. Gasped.

“You okay, sir?”

“Little short of breath.” He sat up, breathed slowly. “I get that way when I’m stressed.”

Milo said, “If you don’t mind, we’ve got a few more questions.”

Mancusi said, “What?”

“After your father passed, did your mother have any romantic relationships?”

“Romantic? She liked books. Watched a few soap operas. That was her romantic.” He flipped his hair, cocked his head, smoothed a peroxide strand from a sweat-soaked brow.

Effete symphony of movements that recalled the posturing Ed Moskow had observed.

“Any close friends, male or female?”

Mancusi shook his head, noticed the vomit fleck on the floor, and raised his eyebrows. The carpet was grease-stained, fuzzed by crumbs and dust bunnies. Some sort of beige, darkened to the hue of a smoker’s teeth.

“No social life at all?” said Milo.

“Nothing. After she retired, Mom liked to be by herself. All the L.A. Unified bullshit. She put up with it for thirty years.”

“So she became a private person.”

“She was
always
a private person. Now she could be
herself.
” Mancusi stifled a sob. “Oh, Mom…”

“It’s a tough thing to deal with,” said Milo.

Silence.

“Did your mother have any hobbies?”

“What?”

Milo repeated the question.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to know her.”

“Hobbies,” said Mancusi. “She liked puzzles – crosswords, Sudoku. Sudoku was her favorite, she liked numbers. She had a math certificate but they had her teaching social studies.”

“Any other games?”

“What do you mean? She was a teacher. She didn’t get… this didn’t happen because of her hobbies. This was a… a… a
lunatic.
”

“So no hobbies or interests that might have gotten her into debt?”

Mancusi’s watery brown eyes drifted to Milo’s face. “What are you
talking
about?”

“These are questions we need to ask, Mr. Mancusi. Did your mom buy lottery tickets, do online poker, anything of that nature?”

“She didn’t even own a computer. Neither do I.”

“Not into the Internet?”

“Why are you
asking
this? You said she wasn’t robbed.”

“Sorry,” said Milo. “We need to be thorough.”

“My mother did not gamble.”

“Was she a person of regular habits?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she have routines – like coming out the same time each morning to collect the paper.”

Mancusi sat there, eyes glazed, not moving.

“Sir?”

“She got up early.” He clutched his belly. “Ohh… here we go again.”

Another rush to the sink. This time, dry heaves left him coughing and panting. He opened a space-saver fridge, took out a bottle of something clear that he uncapped, and swigged. Returned with the liquid still in hand.

Diet tonic water.

Grabbing a section of his own gut, he squeezed hard, rolled the adipose. “Too fat. Used to drink G and T’s, now it’s just sugarless T.” He drank from the bottle, failed to suppress a belch. “Mom never gained a pound from the day she was married.”

“She watched her diet?” said Milo.

Mancusi smiled. “Never had to, she could eat pasta, sugar, anything. I get it from Dad. He died of a heart attack. I need to watch myself.”

“The old cholesterol.”

Mancusi shook his head. “Mom – did they hurt her?”

“They?”

“Whoever. Was it bad? Did she suffer? Tell me she
didn’t.
”

“It was quick,” said Milo.

“Oh, God.” More tears.

Milo handed him a tissue from the mini-pack he always brings to notifications. “Mr. Mancusi, the reason I asked about your mother’s social life is we do have an eyewitness who describes the assailant as around her age.”

Mancusi’s fingers flexed. The tissue dropped.
“What?”

Milo repeated Edward Moskow’s description of the killer, including the blue plaid cap.

Mancusi said, “That’s nuts.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell?”

Mancusi flipped his hair again. “Of course not. Dad had a bunch of caps like that. After he went bald and didn’t want sun on his head. This is totally
insane.
”

Milo said, “What about a black Mercedes S600? That ring any bells?”

“Don’t know anything about cars,” said Mancusi.

“It’s a big four-door sedan,” said Milo. “Top-of-the-line model.”

“Mom wouldn’t know anyone with a car like that. She was a
teacher,
for God’s sake!”

“Please don’t be offended by this next question, Mr. Mancusi, but did your mother know anyone associated – even remotely – with organized crime?”

Mancusi laughed. Kicked the vomit fleck. “Because we’re Italian?”

“It’s something we need to look into-”

“Well, guess what, Lieutenant: Mom
wasn’t
Italian. She was German, her maiden name was Hochswelder. Italian was Dad’s side, he grew up in New York, claimed when he was a kid he knew all kinds of Mafia guys. Had all these stories.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Bodies tossed out of cars, guys getting shot in barber chairs. But no way, no, that’s nuts, those were just stories and Mom
hated
them, called them ‘coarse.’ Her idea of suspense was
Murder, She Wrote,
not
The Sopranos.
”

He returned to the kitchen, placed the tonic water bottle on a counter. “Gambling, gangsters – this is ridiculous.”

“I’m sure it seems that way, but-”

“There’s no reason for her to be dead,
okay
? No
reason,
no
fucking
reason. It’s stupid, insane, shouldn’t have happened – could you stand up?”

“Pardon?”

“Stand up,” said Mancusi. “Please.”

After Milo obliged, Mancusi slipped behind him and yanked down on the Murphy bed. Halfway through, he breathed in sharply, slammed a palm into the small of his back, and straightened. “Disk.”

Milo finished the job, revealing a wafer-thin mattress, gray sheets once white.

Mancusi began easing himself down toward the bed. Sweat rolled down his cheeks.

Milo reached out to help him.

“No, no, I’m fine.”

We watched as he lowered himself in stages. He ended up curled on the bed, knees drawn to his chest, still breathing hard. “I can’t
tell
you anything. I don’t
know
anything.”

Milo asked him about other family members.

Mancusi’s rapid head shake rocked the flimsy mattress. “Mom had a miscarriage after me and that was it.”

“What about aunts, uncles-”

“No one she’s close to.”

Milo waited.

Mancusi said, “Nobody.”

“No one to help you?”

“With what?”

“Getting through this.”

“G and T used to be a big help. Maybe I’ll get back into that. Think that’s okay?” Harsh laughter.

Milo didn’t answer.

Mancusi said, “Maybe fuck everything, I should eat and drink what I want. Maybe I should stop trying to impress anyone.” Tears flowed down his cheeks. “Who’s to impress?”

He turned onto his back. “Could you get me some Aleve – it’s in the cabinet by the stove.”

I found the bottle, shook out a pill, filled a water glass from the tap.

Mancusi said, “I need two.” When I returned, he snatched both tablets from my hand, waved away the water. “I swallow dry.” He demonstrated. “My big talent… I need to rest.”

He rolled away from us.

Milo said, “So sorry for your loss. If you think of anything, call.”

No answer.

As we made it to the door, Mancusi said, “Mom always hated those caps.”

Outside the building, Milo said, “Think that was a performance?”

“Moskow described him as theatrical, but who knows?”

“Theatrical how?”

I recounted the hand-on-hip hair toss.

He frowned. “Did a bit of that just now. But he did barf righteously.”

“People get sick for all sorts of reasons,” I said. “Including guilt.”

“Symbolic catharsis? Or whatever you guys call it.”

“I call it throwing up. He’s an only child with no close relatives. I’d really like to know if there was a will.”

“Agreed,” he said. “The question is how to find it.”

“Maybe those relatives she wasn’t close to can tell you.”

“Tony minimizing the relationships because he didn’t want me talking to them?”

“Family values,” I said. “It’s where it all starts.”

He drove three blocks, popped the unmarked’s trunk, gloved up, and rifled through the box of personal effects he’d taken from Ella Mancusi’s bedroom.

No mention of any relatives other than Tony, but an attorney’s card in a rubber-bound stack elicited a hand-pump.

Jean Barone, Esq. Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica.

The other cards were for plumbers, electricians, A.C. and heating repair, a grocery delivery service.

Men coming in and out of the house, maybe getting to know Ella Mancusi’s routine. If no other leads surfaced soon, they’d all need to be checked out.

Milo phoned Jean Barone and after she got over the shock, she said yes, she’d drawn up Mrs. Mancusi’s will, preferred not to discuss client matters over the phone.

As we headed for Santa Monica, Milo said, “Maybe it’s me, but she sounded eager.”

Jean Barone met us in the cramped, empty lobby of her building, a two-story structure just west of Yale. The space needed freshening. She looked as if she’d just renewed her makeup.

She was a middle-aged, wavy-haired brunette packed tightly into a peacock-blue knockoff Chanel suit. After checking Milo’s I.D., she took us up in the elevator to her two-room suite. No name on the plain white door but hers. Below her degree, supplementary credentials as a Notary Public and Certified Tax Preparer.

Her office smelled of Shalimar. She took a seat behind a dark, wood-like desk. “So horrible about Mrs. Mancusi. Any idea who did this?”

“Not yet. Is there anything you can tell us about her, ma’am?”

“Not really. The only thing I did for her was draw up the will, and that was five years ago.”

“Who referred her to you?”

“The yellow pages. I’d just graduated, had no referral base yet. She was one of my only clients in six months. It was easy, basically boilerplate.”

She opened a drawer and drew out a single sheet of paper. “Here’s your copy. No confidentiality for deceased individuals.”

“There was no copy in Mrs. Mancusi’s house.”

“She didn’t want one,” said Barone. “Said I should keep it.”

“How come?”

Barone shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t want anyone finding it.”

Milo scanned the will. “This is all of it?”

“Given her situation, there was no need to get fancy. The estate was her house, plus a pension, a little cash in the bank. No liens, no encumbrances, no attachments.”

“Only one heir listed.”

“Her son,” said Barone. “I did suggest there were steps she could take to reduce the estate tax burden on him. Like putting the house into a joint trust with a lifetime usage clause for her. She wasn’t interested.”

“Why not?”

“She wouldn’t tell me and I didn’t pry. She was more interested in my hourly rate, clearly didn’t want to spend an extra dime.”

Milo handed me the will. In the event of Anthony Mancusi Jr.’s pre-deceasing his mother, everything was willed to the Salvation Army.

Milo said, “She talk at all about the son?”

“Is he a suspect?”

“We’re looking into everyone close to her.”

“Bet that’s not a huge crowd.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She was polite,” said Jean Barone, “but a little… I got the feeling she wasn’t too sociable. No interest in small talk, cut to the chase. Or maybe she was just minimizing the billable hours. You know that generation. Careful with a buck.”