The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin

O
n a recent Tuesday morning, I was using one of the cinder-block sidewalls in my office as a backboard for Ping-Pong practice. I'd hit the ball against the wall, and before letting it drop to the slick concrete floor I'd pick it out of the air and send it back. I'd pop a few backhands in a row, then hit the ball so that it would come off the wall at an angle, over to my forehand side. After some forehand work, I'd angle it back over to my backhand side. And then I'd do the whole cycle over again. And again. And again. Truthfully, this exercise probably wasn't doing a whole lot for my game, but I was enjoying it immensely. Keeping the ball in the air, never letting it drop, popping it back and forth, making it look like it was on a string.

My office is a warehouse in west L.A., in Culver City. And not too long ago, I'd installed some pretty nice speakers in my space. So as I practiced I was listening to a playlist, at fairly high decibels, of some of my favorite Replacements songs. The music was loud and full, bouncing off the walls and coming right at me, just like the Ping-Pong ball. The sound really filled up the space, and it filled me up with a wild range of emotions. Like, when “Alex Chilton” came on, I felt like dropping to the ground and firing off push-ups. And yet when “Skyway” played, I wanted to drop to the ground and sob uncontrollably.

At some point I looked over at my desk and saw my phone shaking, shivering, frantically moving around like a small, terrified animal. It was ringing too, but I couldn't hear it. The new speakers doing their job. I killed the music, let the Ping-Pong ball drop to the concrete for the first time in a while, and answered my phone.

“John Darvelle.”

“Um, Mr. Darvelle? Um, hello, my name is Peter Caldwell.”

This guy was a nervous wreck. I could tell after one sentence.

“Hi, Peter. What can I do for you?”

“I got your name from another lawyer I know. Um, let me back up. I'm a lawyer. But the other lawyer is Franklin Beverly.”

I'd done some work for Franklin in the past. “Sure,” I said. And then, again, “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I'm the lawyer for the estate of a woman named Muriel Dreen. Mrs. Dreen is old. Quite old. And she, well, she has an . . .
issue
. At first she didn't ask me to try and
help, to try and figure out the problem. This kind of thing is really outside my duties as an estate lawyer . . .”

I thought, If I had a lawyer who had this much trouble getting to the point, I'd probably get rid of him. Or her. But that's just me.

“Peter,” I interrupted. “Are you looking to hire me on behalf of Muriel Dreen?”

“Yes.”

“Then let's meet in person so I can do two things: tell you how much I cost, and then, if we're in business, find out what's going on.”

“Right. Great. Actually, that's what I was going to ask you. To see if you were willing . . . Um, Mrs. Dreen wants to tell you the situation herself. So can you come over? That is, if I give you the address, can you come over? I'm assuming you'll be able to find it, you know, if I give you the address.”

I wondered, Is he done? Is he done with his rambling series of questions? And, more important, am I supposed to answer all of them?

Instead of doing that I just said, “Yes. Give me the address. I'll head over now.”

I lowered and locked the
big metal sliding door that is the entrance to my space—I keep it open almost any time I'm in my office—then got in my car and headed toward Beverly Hills. Muriel Dreen's house was in that section between the shopping area and the actual hills. The flatlands. The flatlands of the Hills. Oxymoronic. Or maybe just moronic. But a nice area, that's for sure. Big, wide streets lined with palms, a lot of older mansions that, while still
quite large, don't take up too much of the lot. There's nothing more desperate-looking than a house too big for its lot. It's like, either fork out the dough to get a bigger lot, or build a house that actually fucking fits. You know what I mean? Man, seeing that, it upsets me. It really does. Anyway, as I was saying, there are no hills in this section of the Hills. You could see some up ahead, but right here? Flat as Kansas, babe.

I pulled into the semicircular driveway that sat in front of Muriel's large, cream-colored French château–style house. There was an old white Rolls parked in an open garage and a new BMW 3 Series parked in the semicircle. A man who looked to be about thirty-five got out. I summoned my greatest detective skills to determine that this was Peter.

I got out of my car and walked over to him. He stuck out his hand. “Peter Caldwell.”

I nodded, and we shook.

He continued, “Thanks for coming over, Mr. Darvelle.”

I thought about telling him to call me John but decided against it. It was fun to be called “mister” every now and then.

I looked at Peter. Thin and tall, maybe six-two, an inch taller than I am. But one of those people who, despite some height, stand kind of hunched over, permanently looking at the ground. He had sandy blond sort of messed-up hair, balding a bit, and a nervous, uncomfortable look in his eye. But a nice, sensitive, even hurt look in his eye as well. This was a decent guy, with manners. If you hired him, he'd probably do right by you. He'd be a stammering, indeci
sive wreck at times, and maybe drive you crazy eventually, but he'd probably do right by you.

Probably. In my line, it takes a whole lot more than a first impression to make me trust someone.

I liked him. For now. But, man, just visibly uncomfortable in his own skin. I pictured him unzipping himself, his skeleton stepping out of his body and then dancing around in front of me, smiling, moving its shoulders around, kicking its feet like it was at a hoedown, happy as hell to be freed from the prison that was Peter.

I think I smoked too much weed in college.

Peter looked at me and said, “Let's go meet Mrs. Dreen, okay? That's what Muriel prefers to be called, Mrs. Dreen.”

He furrowed his brow a bit and then said, “Wait. We should talk about your fee—what you charge—first, right?”

“Right,” I said.

I told him my rate and how I bill: by the hour. I told him what counts as a business expense and what doesn't: Dinner with someone I'm talking to on behalf of a client? Counts. Dinner at home during the course of an investigation? Doesn't count. I also told him what information I put on the actual invoice when I send it in: client's name, invoice number, date, amount. That's it.

As I went through my spiel, his eyes widened and he started nodding. His already-nervous expression was now exaggerated, which I hadn't thought possible.

When I was finished, he said—referring, I thought, to my rate—“Really?”

“Really,” I said.

He nodded some more, and some light beads of sweat popped up on his already-furrowed brow. And then he just said, “Okay. Okay. Let's go inside.”

He opened the front door of the house and we walked in to meet Mrs. Muriel Dreen.