Chapter 4
Henry took Sunrise Way as the quickest way back over to East Palm Canyon drive where Thornbird’s real estate office was located. He found the office building quickly near the Palapas Garden Nursery on Palm Canyon close to the new condominiums that had just been built. The big sign out front had the Coachella Real Estate logo on it with large arrow and an “enter here.” There was plenty of parking, the building was constructed in the parking lot of a shopping center and he found a shady spot under a Palo Verde tree and locked the car and headed for the front door.
The heavily tinted glass door opened onto a tiny lobby filled with several leather upholstered chairs that had seen a lot of use and a table with “Homes” magazines. The interior was filled with a maze of cubicle walls and aisles, and several people popped their heads out above the cube walls as Henry walked in. It reminded Henry somewhat of the prairie dogs checking their environment for predators that he saw on a Discovery channel show once. Obviously Henry was no predator or threat to anyone and as quickly as they popped their heads up, they were down again back at doing whatever it was that they did in their little domains.
The smallest desk Henry had ever seen was off to the left, on its accompanying chair was a bored teenage girl with terrible acne who was reading a magazine and filing her nails while she was talking on the phone.
“Gotta go, someone’s here.” She said as she hung up the phone, slammed the magazine shut and put the fingernail file in the pencil drawer in one smooth motion that Henry figured she probably practiced numerous times throughout the day. She looked up at Henry and said “Welcome to Coachella Real Estate, how can I help you?” with a grin that showed that someone in her family could obviously afford the payments on the silver braces that lined her teeth.
“Good morning, I’m Henry Wright and I’m here to see your office manager” Henry said pleasantly, feeling somewhat sorry for the girl stuck in this little spot.
“Oh, is Mrs. Murphy expecting you?” She asked picking up the phone.
“Well, she’s been told that I would be coming to talk with her so she’s sort of expecting me, but I didn’t make an appointment” Henry said.
“Hold on, I’ll let her know you’re here. You said Mr. Wright, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right, Henry Wright.” Henry said, heading for one of the chairs to wait for the office manager’s arrival.
Shortly after the homely teenager at the little desk had hung up the phone, a small middle aged woman with bright curly strawberry blond hair wearing a dark green pantsuit which complimented her deep green eyes came bounding around the corner of the cubicle wall holding her hand out.
“Mr. Wright, I’m Rosie Murphy, the office manager here at Coachella Real Estate.” Henry got up from the plastic chair and took the offered hand and said
“It’s nice to meet you; do you have a few moments so that I can talk with you about Mr. Thornbird?” Mrs. Murphy had a firm handshake which Henry appreciated; he didn’t care for the limp fish shake, especially in business people.
Henry let her hand go and stepped back as she started waving her hands and talking very animatedly, “Oh yes, poor Rex, I mean Mr. Thornbird, of course. Mr. Johnson from the police department said you’d be interested in talking with me, even though I told those other detectives everything I know. Which isn’t much by the way – say can I get you something to drink, coffee or ice water or something like that – Tiffany, have you offered Mr. Wright anything yet?”
The girl, Tiffany, shook her head while Henry took a breath on Mrs. Murphy’s behalf; it was amazing how this short petite woman could manage such a stream of words and activity without seeming to pause in-between for a breath. “What would you like?” Tiffany, the teenager at the desk smiled her silvery smile.
“Coffee, black, please.” Henry smiled back at the girl, he felt as though he was going to need an infusion of caffeine to keep up with Mrs. Murphy.
“Bring it in to the conference room Tiffany” Mrs. Murphy said to the girl as she turned on her heel and started walking rapidly, almost jogging towards the back of the office. “This way, Mr. Wright.” She said over her shoulder as she turned down an aisle into the maze of cubicles.
Henry was amazed at how someone that short, she had to be all of five feet tall, even with those high heels she was wearing, could cover so much ground so quickly. Henry took several quick large steps across the carpet to catch up with her. She walked down several aisles in the maze of cubicles with desks built in and stacks of papers and files on every desk. Phones were ringing noisily and the office seemed to be a beehive of activity. He caught up with Mrs. Murphy just as she disappeared through a conference room door.
Henry stepped into the conference room and sat down into one of the large leather chairs that surrounded a huge cherry wood conference table. The room was not real large; the table filled it and didn’t leave much space to walk around. The beautiful table and the big black chairs gave the room an elegant, plush feeling. The walls of the room were lined with professional photographs of large estates in the Palm Springs area. The picture directly behind Henry was Bob Hope’s futuristic looking space ship house that was perched on a hilltop not too far from the real estate office.
Mrs. Murphy noticed Henry looking around and said, “The pictures are some of the homes and estates where our office has been involved in the transaction.”
“Oh, very impressive!” Henry said, “I didn’t realize the Hope estate had been sold.”
Mrs. Murphy looked a little uncomfortable at Henry’s question and said “Well, it really hasn’t, but we’re hoping that now that the great man is gone – God rest his soul – that the Hope family will consider our office when they decide what to do with the place – and I think it does make for a neat addition to our picture wall doesn’t it. Oh, where is that Tiffany with your drink – I’d better check on her.”
As Mrs. Murphy picked up the phone, there was a knock on the door and Tiffany opened it to place a large white ceramic mug with the Coachella Real Estate logo on it filled with hot black coffee on the table.
“Thank you dear, that’s all.” Mrs. Murphy said, as she waved her hand dismissing the teenager and sentencing her back to the front desk with her phone, magazine and nail file.
“Now, Mr. Wright, you are here to ask me about Rex, Mr. Thornbird I mean, though I cannot possibly imagine what I can tell you that isn’t already in the report that the other detectives took, why they had a tape recorder and everything, they were very interested in what I had to say – though I must say I don’t know a soul who would want to harm Rrr, Rrr, Mr. Thornbird. He’s the best agent this office has ever had, and the nicest man as well.”
Henry picked up his coffee cup, took a slow sip of the hot coffee and asked, “Can I call you Rosie, Mrs. Murphy?” “Well of course Mr. Wright, everyone in the office calls me Rosie, my real name is Rosalyn, but that is so old-fashioned don’t you agree, Rosie suits me much better, that’s why my hair is this color as well, this isn’t my natural color you see, there is a sweet old lady in a small shop on Indian Canyon that orders this color especially for me, and I had her promise me not to use it on anyone else”
She stopped the stream of words when Henry held his hand up to silence her for a moment.
“Please call me Henry, and though I would really like to hear about your hairdresser some other time, I’d like to spend a few minutes with you talking about Mr. Thornbird. Please tell me how long you have known him and what your relationship with him was like and also some of his past deals – especially what he was currently working on.”
Henry was a little annoyed as he caught himself doing the same thing as the woman sitting across the table from him by blurting out all the questions he wanted to ask at once. He set his coffee cup down on the table a little too hard and some of the coffee sloshed out onto the cherry table top. He took a deep breath to get his control back as he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe the coffee up before it penetrated the beau
tiful wood of the table.
“Rosie, let’s take this slowly, ok?” He said folding his handkerchief back up. “How long have you known Mr. Thornbird?”
The small woman with the bright red hair was obviously startled when Henry put his coffee cup on the table and looked at him with her large bright green eyes and said “I met Mr. Thornbird when I came to work here at the office as a receptionist four years ago.”
“Thank you,” Henry said, standing up slightly to put his handkerchief back in his pocket. “How well did Mr. Thornbird get along with everyone here in the office?” Henry asked settling back into the large black leather chair.
“Well, everyone looked up to him of course” Rosie answered, fidgeting with her brightly colored finger nails while she had her hands clasped together in front of her. “Mr. Thornbird sold more properties than most of the agents put together, and his clients were always pleased. Almost always anyway.” She continued, glancing up at Henry. “A few years ago, when that terrible woman he was married to took him for nearly everything he had, he took it in stride and came into the office every day. He was even here on Saturdays and Sundays, he worked so hard and so many hours that soon he had everything back and more than she took.” She said looking up at Henry with sad eyes. “I came into the office once on a Sunday morning and found him asleep here in the conference room, he’d been working so hard.”
She shuddered at the memory, and continued “I felt sorry for him, but he was determined to regain everything that he had worked so hard for and was very dedicated to his work and making his clients happy.”
The coffee was cooling down a bit and Henry took another sip. It was strong and good, the office obviously had some kind of service and Henry made a mental note to ask Rosie what brand they used here. It seemed as though strong coffee was an important element in the real estate business.
“What made Mr. Thornbird so successful?” He asked setting his coffee cup down.
Rosie sat back from the table and thought about her answer, “Well, I think Rex had the ability to spot a trend in the property purchasing business and capitalize on it.” She said.
“What do you mean by trend” Henry asked.
“Well, for example, a number of years ago, architect properties were very much in fashion here, and Rex listed and sold more than his share of them. These are houses and estates that were designed by well known ’50’s architects like Albert Frey and Richard Dutra here in Palm Springs. Rex sought out all of their work and marketed them and they sold for a nice premium over what other properties were commanding at the time.” Rosie said not without a bit of pride about what the late Rex Thornbird had done to make money for himself and the Coachella Real Estate office.
“Then when he had sold more architectural houses than anyone knew existed, he turned his attention to celebrity homes, which were becoming all the rage.” Rosie continued. “You know he has this uncanny ability to discover which movie stars and celebrities used to come right here to Palm Springs to dry out or recover from plastic surgery or even have illicit affairs.” She suppressed a nervous giggle at this last part.
“Interestingly, his first celebrity property was a double whammy in that it was also designed by Albert Frey, the well-known Modernist architect.” She brightened up and leaned towards Henry on the other side of the table as she remembered that transaction. She lowered her voice, “It was a small run-down hotel out near the Palm Springs Racquet Club known as the Legend. The rumor was that Marilyn Monroe used to stay in one of the rooms – it has a back door that can be used to get away quietly, she met politicians there for her illicit affairs. Rex showed me the room before he sold the property.”
She leaned back again, seemingly quite in awe of the Monroe legacy and having been in the same hotel room as the late star. “A nice young couple from Chicago bought it, they were going to renovate it and turn it into a modern resort – though I don’t know how they would do that and not ruin the Frey character the place had. I’ve not been back to look at it since.” Rosie finished.
Henry felt that they were getting off track a little bit, but wanted to keep her talking about Thornbird’s past deals. Thornbird must have had enemies, and the most likely place to look was in a deal gone bad, a jilted lover, or amongst a jealous co-worker.
“Is that when he switched to his concentration on celebrity homes?” Henry asked picking up his now quickly cooling coffee.
“Yes, shortly after selling the hotel property Rex got a listing for a house that was once owned by Robert Goulet, you know he has such a nice voice, and it demanded quite a premium over what other properties were going for in the neighborhood at the time.” Rosie recounted.
“Then, like he had a Midas touch, other former celebrity homes started coming his way. He sold a place that Bette Davis once owned to a young man from Northern California, an older couple from Minnesota bought a property that had a swimming pool that was designed for Veronica Lake, and even the property where he was found had a Hollywood connection.” She choked up when she spoke her last sentence, reached for a tissue on the credenza behind her, “I’m sorry, I still have a hard time dealing with the fact that he is gone, this office is going to have a hard time dealing with that.”
Henry nodded his understanding, he was sure that this office losing a valued member and its best salesperson was not just an emotional scar that needed to be healed but a financial scar as well, he wondered if Rosie was at all concerned about the monetary impact, he hoped not.
“You said the house on Granvia Valmonte had a celebrity connection as well, are you sure?” Henry asked.
“Oh yes” Rosie replied, “It was rumored that the house was once owned by the famous Rudy Vallee. You know, the fellow that sang through a megaphone.”
“Oh sure, I remember him.” Henry said, draining the last of his coffee from his cup and setting it gently on the table. “You know, I don’t know how he finds these things out, Rex, I mean. He has a real talent for discovering these celebrity places. Had, I mean, sorry.” She said as she blew her nose in her tissue and reached for a new one behind her.
“Can you help me with a list of Mr. Thornbird’s property sales for the past few years?” Henry asked.
“Of course, but it will take me a while to get such a report together.” Rosie smiled as she answered Henry. She was still wiping her nose with the tissues, but was not nearly as nervous as when Henry first walked in the door. Henry figured that perhaps talking to someone about Thornbird’s demise allowed her to process that finality and helped settle her down to the point where she was no longer talking so much that Henry was afraid she was going to turn blue from not breathing.
“Let’s say mid-day tomorrow?” Rosie asked. “That will give me enough time to pull all the records from the computer system and you can take the report with you.”
“That sounds good.” Henry said, “Last question, I promise, what can you tell me about lock boxes?”
“Lock boxes?” Rosie asked. “You mean regular key lock boxes?”
“Yes, the kind that are outside all the homes that are for sale.” Henry asked.
“Well, there’s not much to them.” Rosie said. “When a home is listed for sale, the key to the door is put inside the box. The box is locked with a combination and it is attached somewhere near the door. We still use the older kind with a combination here in the Coachella Valley; other places in the real estate business have switched over to electronic ones.”
“I saw one attached to a hose bib at the house on Granvia Valmonte” Henry said.
“Yes, faucets, a porch railing, the gas pipe, sometimes it is on the door knob.” Rosie explained.
“So, who has the combination?” Henry asked.
“Well every real estate agent needs to get in, so they all know the combination.” Rosie said.
“That doesn’t seem like a secure system.” Henry said, “How many agents are there in your office?”
“Well our office has about forty agents, and th
ere are about thirty real estate offices in the Coachella Valley.” Rosie answered.
“So all the lockboxes from all the offices have the same combination?” Henry asked,
“If all the offices are the same size as yours that means over 1,200 people have access to all the homes that are for sale.”
“Well we are one of the larger offices, but yes, there are a lot of people that have access to the combination.” Rosie agreed.
“Do you change the combinations on a regular basis?” Henry asked.
“No, no, no, it’s a big headache, you know there are a lot of boxes, they’re attached to homes all over the Valley, so we only change them once a year or so. But you know Henry we’ve never had a problem with a break-in or a crime or anything.” Rosie replied.
“Until Rex Thornbird had his little problem that is.” Henry said, getting up to leave.
“You don’t think someone opened the lockbox and got in to kill Rex - do you?” Rosie said as she too got up out of her chair. “Are we done, you don’t have any more questions for me?”
Henry ignored her first question; he wasn’t ready to share what he was thinking with anyone. “No, I think you’ve told me everything I need to know at this point, thank you for the coffee.” Henry answered, reaching for the door.
“Ok, if you’re satisfied, then I guess that is ok. The other detectives were here a lot longer and asked a lot more questions. You didn’t even take any notes!” Rosie seemed a little indignant that Henry was ready to go when she felt that he had not spent enough time interviewing her.
Henry smiled at her and said, “I kind of work without notes, believe me, you’ve been very helpful and if I have any other questions, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Ok,” Rosie smiled, “say 12:30, that’s when I should have everything ready for you.”
“Great” Henry replied as he stepped out of the conference room. “Say, you wouldn’t mind walking me back to the front door would you?” He asked, “I think I’d get lost in this maze here.”
Rosie laughed and her eyes sparkled as she went past him and said, “Of course Henry, please come this way.”
Back at the reception area, Tiffany quickly repeated her earlier smooth and well-practiced motion of putting down the phone, hiding the magazine and dropping the nail file in the drawer as she saw Rosie and Henry approaching. Rosie turned, held out her hand and said, “See you tomorrow Mr. Wright.”
Henry, a little startled by the return to the more formal greeting, shook her hand and said “I did think of one more thing, can you get me one of the frames that you put the handout sheets for the houses in. You know the sheets where you have the picture and the little blurb about the house that prospective buyers take.”
Rosie got a puzzled look on her face as she took her hand back. “I think I know what you mean Mr. Wright, but we don’t really have anything like that. Our flyers are usually outside in a plastic box attached to the For Sale sign. Sometimes some of the agents will put some extra flyers on the kitchen counter or somewhere, but we don’t really have any frames or holders other than the ones on the signs.”
“Oh, ok, my mistake I guess.” Henry said, reaching for the front door. “See you tomorrow, around lunch time.”
“Ok, Mr. Wright, until then.” Rosie answered already turning back towards the maze of cubicles in the building.
The heat of a late April Palm Springs day was at its height with the temperature well over 100 as Henry walked back to his car thinking that he needed to take a look at the For Sale signs that were planted in the front yards. He didn’t really notice the heat, just as he never noticed the boxes on the signs that Rosie was talking about. He wondered what had left the imprint in the dust on the mantle of the house on Granvia. Wayne was probably right that it didn’t mean anything, but Henry couldn’t help but think about what had been there and now wasn’t.
Henry started the car and rolled the windows down as the air conditioner did its best to cool the car down to the 82 that Henry preferred. Even under the shade of the tree the car had heated up so that the inside seemed more like a dry heat sauna. Once it cooled off a bit he rolled up the windows and turned the car north on Palm Canyon and made a right turn on Sunrise Way heading for home. Surely there had to be a Coachella Real Estate sign along the way to his house. He knew they were as ubiquitous as palm trees in this part of Palm Springs. He’d stop and have a look at one on the way.