For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

Chapter 7

  Henry took the four stair steps up to the police station in two long strides. He pushed open the door and signed in at the front desk. The reserve officer behind the bullet proof glass asked him who he was there to see and pushed a visitor badge through the slot under the glass. Henry took the badge, peeled off the backing and stuck it to his shirt. Before September 11, if he wanted to see Wayne, he basically walked in and waved at the officer at the desk. That the world had changed that day was apparent - here was one more sign.

  He wondered if after the tragedy they had made any changes at the Eagle River police station. Of course, it wasn’t as large as the building here in Palm Springs; Eagle River looked more like the sheriff’s office in Mayberry than this large multi-storied building.

  Wayne came down the stairs and escorted him up to his office.

  “Did you find out something?” He asked as they were walking back up the stairs together.

  “No, not really, I came by to see if I could get the keys to Thornbird’s house.” Henry replied.

  “Sure, why not, the lab crew has been there, I don’t think they found anything.” Wayne replied, “Let’s call the property room from my desk, they should have the keys.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know what to look for.” Henry sat down at the visitor’s chair next to Wayne’s desk.

  “Perhaps, and you think you do?” Wayne smiled as he dialed the extension for the property room from his desk phone.

  “Lunch gave me some interesting ideas.” Henry answered.

  “This morning you were saying that you were going to lunch with the office manager from Coachella Real Estate, did that turn out to be enlightening?” Wayne hung up the phone. “The property room said they would bring the keys to my desk, they need to run up here for something else anyway.”

  “Lunch was certainly enlightening.” He didn’t say it, but Henry thought it had enlightened him in ways that had nothing to do with the Thornbird investigation.

  “Apparently Thornbird was selling properties with questionable celebrity connections to unsuspecting buyers who paid a premium for these places. It inflated his commission and he made a tidy profit.”

  “So you think one of his past clients got mad at him and did it?” Wayne asked.

  “Most likely, the question is which one?” Henry picked up a pencil from Wayne desk and started idly doodling on Wayne’s memo pad. He found himself drawing little houses with trees and streets connecting them.

  “You guys looking for a set of keys?” An overweight sergeant who obviously was no longer on patrol but probably sat in the property room behind a computer screen was standing next to Wayne’s desk.

  “Yeah, are these Thornbird’s?” Wayne took the keys from the sergeant.

  “That’s what the tag says.” The sergeant shook his head as he walked away, how did these guys get to be detectives anyway?

  “Ok Hank, here you go, let me know if you find something interesting.” Wayne dropped the keys into Henry’s hand. “I just need one more thing.” Henry put the keys in his pocket.

  “Anything you want is yours my friend.” Wayne smiled.

  “An address, I don’t even know where Thornbird’s house is.” Henry smiled as well.

  Henry parked his car at the curb of Thornbird’s house on West Chino Canyon Road. The homes in this part of Palm Springs were much different than Henry’s house on Mel Avenue, he felt as though his house was a cracker box compared to some of the structures that had been built here. He was on the north side of Palm Canyon Drive, up against the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. The view of the Coachella Valley from here was spectacular; it was as though Palm Springs was at his feet.

  Thornbird’s house appeared to be as spectacular as its setting. The driveway swooped down the hill to a large garage that was partially under the house. It was a signature Palm Spring fifties Modernist design where the roof angled up and windows soared from the floor to the roofline. Obviously the real estate business had treated Thornbird better than the police business had treated Henry. Henry walked up to the large front door and used the key to open it. When he stepped into the foyer, the two-story view was straight to the back wall which was made of large glass panels. It looked as though the pool was part of the living room while at the same time it disappeared into the hillside on the other side.

  The foyer had a railing from which Henry looked down onto the living room and what had to be the kitchen on the right side. There were stairs on the right side of the balcony going down to the lower level and hallways to either side which probably led to the bedrooms. The front door closed behind Henry and he walked down the stairs to the lower level while he took his time looking all around the room. The living room was sparsely furnished, but Henry recognized the quality of the tables, chairs and lamps. Thornbird had not made any trips to Ikea for this stuff.

  He walked around the house, going down the hallway to the right to find a large open kitchen. Obviously the kitchen was remodeled recently; there was a lot of stainless steel and stone here. The stove was a large affair with at least six burners, but as Henry looked a little closer, it didn’t appear as though it had seen a lot of use. He opened the refrigerator which had some milk, eggs and not much else. The freezer was filled with single serving pizzas and frozen rice bowls. On the front of the refrigerator was a magnet from Rocky’s Pizza and the take out phone number was prominently displayed in large type. On top of the fridge, Henry found a folder from waiters-to-go. So it was either a microwave meal or pizza delivery for Thornbird, somehow, though Henry was also single, he didn’t live that way.

  He opened the door that led into the garage; the light switch was one of those lit up little red things, he flicked it on and fluorescent tubes lit up the entire space. The garage was completely finished with white walls and matching cabinets. It was spotless and other than a broom and a garbage can in one corner virtually empty except for a brand new Land Rover that still had paper license plates. Henry tried the door to the car, but it was locked. He looked through the tinted windows but couldn’t really see anything inside. He thought of looking for the keys to the car, but didn’t think searching it would produce anything. It would be nice to sit in that big leather seat and look at the burl wood dash and smell that new car smell though. Oh well, he’d just have to buy his own Land Rover one day – fat chance he thought - Henry walked back into the kitchen, flipping off the garage lights on the way back in.

  He crossed the living room and took the stairs back up to the entry foyer and went down the hallway at the other side of the house. There were two bedrooms here; the master bedroom was simply furnished with just a bed and a dresser. The room had high ceilings but it was surprisingly small for the overall size of the house. The adjoining bathroom had obviously been remodeled and had a large soaking tub as well as a steam shower. Henry realized that the bedroom was small because space had been taken away from it to make the bathroom larger during the remodel. Just as in the kitchen, there was a lot of beautiful stone here and the room was bright and functional. Henry was getting to like Thornbird’s style; the man certainly had not scrimped on quality when it came to furnishing his home, or buying his cars.

  He opened the medicine cabinet behind the beveled mirror in the bathroom. On its shelves was the usual stuff: Toothpaste, deodorant, a can of shaving cream, some athlete’s foot powder, a couple of toothbrushes, and a tube of lipstick. Henry picked up the lipstick, examined it and dropped it into his pocket. So, Charles had been wrong. Thornbird did like women; he obviously had one as a guest here at some point. Unless, Henry suddenly thought, what if Charles was right and Thornbird liked to cross dress. He closed the medicine cabinet and walked back into the bedroom and opened the closet door. Nothing in here but slacks, shirts, sport coats and a couple of suits and a great collection of Hawaiian Aloha shirts. Henry looked at the back of the closet to see if anything was hidden and there was nothing unusual.

  He closed the closet door and went back out into the ha
llway. The second bedroom was obviously set up as a guest room and looked as though it had never been used. It was very similar to the guest room in Henry’s house; it had a bed, nightstand, and an armoire that looked as though it contained a television. Thornbird had obviously taken care of his guests, even though it didn’t look like it anyone had ever stayed here. Like Henry’s house, this guest room had its own attached bathroom, while it didn’t have the steam shower or soaking tub, Thornbird had not spared any money here and his guests would have been very comfortable.

  Henry crossed back over the foyer balcony to check out the rooms on the other side of the house. He opened the first door to the most well equipped home gym he had ever seen. One wall was covered with mirrors which seemingly reflected every workout machine that had ever been built. Henry could not even identify some of them, he recognized a Nordic Track, a rowing machine, a treadmill, there was a machine with some kind of springs that he had seen on TV, and other machines that gleamed and glowed. There were flat screen televisions on every wall; this gym must have cost Thornbird a pretty penny.

  Henry shook his head at the lavishness, closed the door and walked down the hall to the next door. This room was noticeably smaller than the others and very intimate covered in wood paneling, with thick oriental rugs on the hardwood floor; it had a very masculine clubby feeling. A large desk sat under the window, a comfortable black leather desk chair was behind it. It was obvious that this was the room that Thornbird had spent the most time in. The back wall had an aerial photograph of Palm Springs in the forties; it was lit from behind and almost looked three dimensional. Finally Henry thought he had found something that would help him when he spotted a computer sitting under the desk.

  Henry sat down in Thornbird’s big cushy executive chair, reached for the computer and turned it on. He waited for it to boot up and checked out the computer station. He admired Thornbird’s choice in equipment, a new Canon scanner sat on a shelf above an HP photo printer. The machine itself was a Dell similar to Henry’s but it looked like it was a newer model. The DSL modem was on a separate shelf, and it looked like there was a wireless router next to it. Henry looked around to see if he could find a laptop, he didn’t see one; maybe it was still in Thornbird’s car. He could certainly imagine Thornbird sitting in one of the lounges next to the pool researching homes or looking for celebrities names that he could use in his little scam.

  The machine was done with its startup routine and waiting for someone to tell it what to do. Henry grabbed the mouse – it was wireless, he liked that – and brought up the Internet browser so that he could see what kind of stuff Thornbird was looking at. His home page came up as the Coachella Real Estate page, and other than a picture of the office, a picture of Mr. Thornbird, and a weather banner, nothing there was interesting.

  Henry clicked on the Favorites button to see what Thornbird had bookmarked on the machine. There was nothing unusual here, The Palm Springs National Bank, The Desert Sun newspaper site, Realtor.com, Google, eBay, The Robb Report, an article on the Palm Springs Living site and Travelocity. Henry looked at the list; this looked a lot like his own Favorites list at home. Maybe he should look in his My Documents folder to see if he kept a file of homes, or maybe a spreadsheet with some information in it.

  He thought back to the report that Rosie had given him; it was on the front seat of his car, he was going to go over it carefully tonight. Hopefully it would tell him which homes had references to celebrities and who the buyers of these homes were. Henry figured Thornbird had to keep his own list of properties and their descriptions; after all he didn’t want to make any mistakes. Henry didn’t think it would work if Thornbird sold three different homes that were all supposedly owned by Robert Goulet within the same year.

  Henry checked the My Documents folder, there were numerous letters, and a spreadsheet with Thornbird’s stock portfolio, Henry opened the spreadsheet and wished he was doing as well with his investments, but there was nothing in there that would lead him to a killer. He opened about twenty or so documents, they were letters to buyers thanking them for purchasing a home from Thornbird. They were standard form letters and made no references to price, previous ownership or any details about the home.

  Henry was starting to wonder if the laptop that had to be around somewhere – why else would Thornbird have this Wireless Access Point – had some critical information on it. Maybe he should call Wayne and ask him if the property room had the machine. Perhaps he should look for it in the closet or somewhere here in the house. It could be in the Land Rover in the garage, he wondered if the keys to the car were around here somewhere. If Henry had a laptop, he would keep it in its bag right near the door. What good was such a machine if you didn’t keep it mobile, ready to go.

  Henry was frustrated that he couldn’t find anything. He went back to reading Thornbird’s Favorites list and went through it one more time. He clicked on the article at the Palm Springs Living website and started reading. Palm Springs Living was a glossy magazine that was more advertising than content in Henry’s opinion. He’d read a few issues and acknowledged that every once in a while they did print an interesting story. It looked as though Thornbird bookmarked a story that the magazine published a little while ago, this one was about Alexander homes. Henry started reading:

  Robert and George Alexander, a father and son developer team, teamed up with noted Palm Springs architect William Krisel and started building tracts of homes in Palm Springs for a decade starting in 1947 that were based on a single interior design and varied exterior designs that made them look different from the street. The homes were all approximately 1,600 square feet but were designed to look larger since the roofline continued to the carport.

  The homes turned their backs to the street, with the three bedrooms on the street side. This made the kitchens and living rooms face the backyards in order to emphasize the outdoor living that the Coachella Valley climate allowed. Most of these”Alexander” homes were also built with swimming pools and appealed to the upper middle class Los Angeles families in the mid-fifties who wanted a second home away from the big city.

  The article continued to talk about where the Alexander tracts could be found within the city. It pointed out that these homes were simply constructed, did not have much storage space and now needed expensive repairs and refurbishment from their new owners.

  Obviously Thornbird had used a lot of this information as background in his business. There was no mention in the article of any of these homes being popular with movie stars; it looked as though Thornbird had come up with that on his own. This was interesting, but it merely confirmed that Rex came up with the celebrity tie-in in order to boost the prices and desirability of what appeared to be small homes that didn’t meet the standards of today.

  Henry leaned back in Thornbird’s chair and looked at the computer screen. He was missing something and didn’t know what it was. He looked around the room as he thought about it. His own office certainly didn’t look like this. There was beautiful real wood paneling on the walls, there was a watercolor painting above the desk that was real, not a knockoff print. There was a vase on a shelf in the corner of the room from a recognizable glass artist with an unpronounceable last name. Real estate had definitely been good to Rex Thornbird, but it had also killed him, and Henry was trying to find out whom.

  Henry looked back at the screen. Suddenly it struck him - with all these beautiful things in this house and in this room, what was Thornbird doing surfing on eBay? Wasn’t it a little odd that he had a bargain auction site bookmarked? Henry clicked the mouse on the browser and clicked again on eBay in the Favorites list. The site came up with Thornbird’s eBay name already filled in and requested his password.

  Henry looked around the computer; usually there was a little sticky note with passwords on every monitor. Not in this case. The cursor was blinking at Henry in the password space; Henry sat back in the chair, thinking of what Rex Thornbird would have used for a password. The cursor c
ontinued blinking at him as though egging him on, even teasing him. Henry leaned forward in the chair, put his hands on the keyboard and slowly typed in the word J-A-G-U-A-R. The screen went blank and came back up and said “Welcome back, Rex.”

  Henry was quite satisfied with himself and clicked on the My eBay icon. There it was, on the list of “Items I Have Won”, was an 8 by 10 autographed picture of Rudy Vallee. Thornbird had paid eight dollars for it. Not a bad return, Henry thought, an eight dollar photograph, a five dollar picture frame and the price of a house is bumped up by fifty thousand dollars. Thornbird’s commission on just the fifty K was at least four grand. There were other photographs that Thornbird had bid on and won an 8 by 10 of Bette Davis, a “personally autographed” picture of Robert Goulet, a “colorized” photo of Veronica Lake, and a 5 by 7 picture of Lawrence Welk.

  Under the “Items You Didn’t Win” category was an autographed picture of Peter Lawford. Thornbird had bid five dollars and it was sold for seven. The date it was sold was the day after Thornbird died. Henry could not remember seeing a Peter Lawford reference in any homes that were listed on Realtor.com, maybe this was Thornbird’s next house listing with a celebrity tie-in. If so it didn’t matter that he didn’t win it, Thornbird wasn’t going to pull that scam again. That was one home that would be sold solely on its own merits.

  Interesting, Thornbird could have bought practically anything on eBay, he certainly could afford it. But he allowed himself to be outbid for a photograph of Peter Lawford by a couple of bucks. People are curious at times, Henry thought, here was a guy making thousands in commissions as a result of inflated home prices and he was going on the cheap on a photograph.

  Henry got up from the chair and walked out of the room. Back in the hallway, there was another bathroom next to the office. This one was on the small side and while it was appointed with the same quality fixtures as the other rooms, its small size struck Henry. Why didn’t Thornbird borrow some space from the office during his remodel and make this room a little larger like he had done in the master bedroom? Wait a minute, he thought, there was no room to borrow, the office was already small.

  He retraced his steps and looked inside the office again. The wall adjoining the bathroom was the one with the aerial photograph he admired earlier. He walked over to the picture and lifted it up to see where the wiring for the backlight was coming from. As he did, the picture quietly rose up by an electric motor and a track in the paneling that wasn’t noticeable if you didn’t know it was there, to reveal a flat plasma television screen. On a ledge under the plasma screen was a large remote control with a touch screen. Henry picked it up and looked at the choices. Television, DVD, VCR1, VCR2 and Vault. Henry pushed the button on the screen that corresponded to Vault. The sides of the paneled wall swung in to reveal racks with two VCR’s a carousel DVD player and hundreds of videos. DVD’s on one side, VCR tapes on the other. Some were labeled professionally; most had typed or handwritten labels on them. Henry pushed the power button on the plasma screen and on the DVD player and hit the “Play” button. The screen flickered to life and the images that Henry saw made him bolt from the room, he barely made it to the small bathroom where he threw up in the toilet.

  After emptying the contents of his stomach, he realized he was still holding the remote control. He walked back into the office where the images were still playing on the fancy screen. He pushed the stop button and thankfully the screen darkened. Examining some of the titles of the tapes and DVD’s he realized that Rex Thornbird, mid-century specialist, top producing real estate agent in the Coachella Valley had a dirty little secret. Thornbird was a pedophile who liked high school aged boys.

  Several hours later Henry walked back into his kitchen carrying the manila folder that Rosie had given him and the Chinese food that he picked up at Lam’s Garden on the way home. There was another note from Charles on the refrigerator that he was going to be late at the Palm Springs AIDS hospice where he volunteered once a week.

  He put the folder on the dining room table while he grabbed a plate from the cupboard. He emptied the Chinese take-out from the little white containers onto the plate and sat down at the dining room table and pulled the folder towards him. Rosie had arranged Thornbird’s past deals in reverse chronological order with the Albert Frey architected hotel on Racquet Club Drive on top. The list included the original description that the listing service had on the property, the sales price as well as the names of the buyers and sellers. He looked through the list while he ate his dinner.

  When he finished his plate, Henry went to his office and called Wayne Johnson on his cell phone.

  “Duke, it’s Henry, can you talk?”

  “Yeah Hank, I’m on my way home. What’s up?”

  “Did you know about Thornbird’s little fetish, is that why none of your guys wanted to work on this case?”

  “Hank, I heard a rumor, and yeah, nobody on the staff wanted this assignment, there are a lot of cops who are secretly glad that he is dead.”

  “I found his collection of videos.” Henry said. There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Wayne, I said I found his perverted collection, the man was disgusting, and we need to have that crap destroyed.”

  “I… I… I’m really sorry Henry. I didn’t know about that. We searched the house but didn’t find anything. Like I said, I heard rumors, but I had no idea that he had a collection of stuff.” Wayne sounded very apologetic.

  “I believe you Duke.”

  “Hank, I’d have never asked you to get involved if I had known to what extent Thornbird was into this shit. Do you want to quit?”

  This time Henry was quiet.

  “Henry?” Wayne used Henry’s proper name to get his attention.

  “Yeah, I’m here, no, I’ll continue looking into it. I’d like to nail whoever he got this stuff from as well.”

  “You’ll have plenty of help from my department doing that. Let me know what you find out. Are you mad at me?” “No, Duke, no, I’m not mad at you. You didn’t know, right?”

  “I didn’t know, honestly. I’ll get a crew up to his house to impound everything. Where is it?”

  “It’s in his office; I left the picture it was hidden behind raised up so that you can impound it.”

  “All right Hank, I’ll get a crew over there in the morning. I’m really sorry you had to find it, but I’m glad you did.”

  “Ok Duke. I’ll talk with you later.” Henry hung up the phone. He had to get back to investigating who might have killed Thornbird, he wondered if the discovery of Thornbird’s illegal activities might have motivated the murder. It didn’t seem that way. Thornbird had kept his desires well concealed. He decided to continue following the real estate trail, at least for now.

  Henry picked up a yellow legal pad and pencil and went back to the kitchen table, opened his fortune cookie while he made his own list of all the properties with celebrity connections, and the names of the new owners, he could look up their phone numbers later. First on his list were Tim and MarieAnne Miller, the owners of the former Laguna hotel, which they had renamed the Solé Hotel.

  His fortune read: News from a stranger will soon enlighten your life.