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  Sunlight warmed the chaparral and the dry conditions intensified the volatile oils in the dense, low-growing vegetation. The still air was heavy with the woody smell of eucalyptus, black sage, and California lilac. Manzanitas and canyon live oaks, while drought tolerant, are also highly flammable—nature’s bottle rockets. Given current conditions, with the slightest miscalculation in human judgment, the landscape could ignite, turning into an ocean of fire that would take everything in its path.

  I turned left onto Winding Canyon Road, following a series of switchbacks that angled ever upward. Houses were fewer here and farther between. There were no intervening side roads. An occasional driveway led off to some unseen habitat, but I saw no other motorists. I spotted the big sandstone boulder with the house number blasted into it and I turned in as I had the week before. When I reached the parking area below the house, I shut down my engine and got out. I stood for a moment, turning by degrees until I’d taken in the whole of the property, which Vera claimed had been on the market for years. Of course there was no For Sale sign. Montebello residents frown on anything so crass. I suspect in any economic decline, countless homes are listed on the quiet, with no suggestion to the outside world that owners are scrambling around trying to scare up quick cash.

  I lifted my gaze to the house that towered over me. The expanses of exterior glass looked blank and lifeless. Before, believing someone was in residence, I’d seen signs of life, projecting the appropriate appearances. Now, if what Vera had told me was correct, I was seeing the structure as it really was: deserted and suffering neglect.

  Scanning the foundation, I didn’t spot any cracks, but maybe they’d been puttied over and painted to match the rest of the poured concrete footing. I could certainly see where the termites were at work. A moldering cord of firewood had been stacked up against the house on the uphill side where it was cozied up next to an exposed beam. Some of the quartered logs looked fresh, and I was guessing that if a tree went down, the gardener assigned to maintain the property dutifully split and stacked the wood. Aside from that, there were no other indications that anyone had tended to the place in recent months. I climbed the rugged stone stairs, careful where I stepped.

  When I reached the front door, I cupped my hands to the glass and peered in. The place was empty. No paintings, no furniture, no tarps, no glowing lamps. The floors were plain wood with no sign of the Oriental carpets I’d seen. I realized my perceptions on the prior occasion were colored by my expectations. Now the white walls were bare and looked slightly dingy. I tried the knob and found it locked.

  I followed the deck as it skirted the house in a wide arc. On the far side, looking out over the city, the view seemed flat—two-dimensional instead of the diorama I’d admired by night. On the terrace below, the infinity pool was hidden under a tattered automated cover. There were no deck chairs, no side table, no heaters, no remnant of fine Chardonnay. Dead leaves were scattered across the surface of the deck, caught here and there where the wind had blown them up against the railing. I glanced down. There between the beveled planks of the decking, I saw a line of dull silver. I squatted and peered, then used my thumbnail to loosen and lift the object. I held it up with a long, slow smile. “First mistake,” I said aloud.

  This was the paper clip Hallie had used to secure the copies of the newspaper articles she’d given me.

  I did a full exterior search, checking two trash cans, which were empty. I’d hoped to find the Chardonnay bottle, but maybe she’d taken it back to the liquor store, hoping for the deposit. Pick away as I might with the sprung paper clip, I couldn’t jimmy any of the locks, so I had to be content with peering into assorted windows as I circled the house. If the house had been on the market for years, there must be some provision for local agents to get into the place to show prospective buyers.

  I looked around with interest. Where would I put a lockbox if I were in charge? Not on the front or back doors. That would have been the same as an invitation for someone to break and enter, which is against the law. I went down the outside stairs to ground level and went around the house again—tough work on a hillside that steep. I’d just about reached my original point of departure when I found an old-fashioned lockbox attached to a hose bib and secured by a combination lock. I checked the lockbox, surprised the device wasn’t electronically controlled. Maybe no one had thought to replace it with one more sophisticated. In my perimeter search, I hadn’t come across evidence of an alarm system. If the place had been empty since the sixties, it was possible proper security had never been installed.

  The lock was small and looked about as effective as the ones on rolling suitcases. There were four rotating wheels, numbered zero through nine. Even with my rudimentary math skills, I was looking at ten times ten times ten times ten, or ten thousand possibilities. I tapped an index finger against my lips, trying to determine how much time that would take. More than I could spare. I trudged a few steps up the hill to the woodpile, grabbed a handsome chunk of freshly split oak, returned to the lockbox, and hauled back in my best batter-up mode. I swung and whacked the lock so hard, it flew off into the brush, and then I picked up the key.

  11

  My tour of the interior was largely unproductive. Hallie Bettancourt had left nothing behind. Somehow she’d managed to furnish the place and then eliminate any trace of physical evidence. Except for the paper clip, of course, which was so ubiquitous as to be insignificant. The house had that odd smell that seems to emerge when human occupants have moved on. I wandered down the hall and peered into the powder room. I tried the wall switch. The power was on. I turned the faucet and discovered the water had been shut off. I moved on to the kitchen. While the residence was designed along sleek, contemporary lines, the bathroom and kitchen fixtures were fifty years old and looked every bit of it. What was top-of-the-line when the house was built was by now sadly outdated.

  The walls had recently been painted white, but in the spots where two coats had failed to cover, I could see the original pea green hue. The counters and splashboards were tiled in white, three-by-six rectangles laid horizontally. Subway-style tiling is all the rage again, but here the look was curiously dated. Appliances had been removed, and the refrigerator- and stove-size gaps made the room seem stark and unfriendly. A breakfast nook at one end of the room sported a built-in table with a bench on either side. The padded seats were upholstered in a fabric I remembered from one of the trailers we’d lived in when I was growing up. The pattern bore a black background with violins, clarinets, and jaunty musical notes in lemon, lime, and tangerine. I couldn’t imagine why the seat fabric hadn’t been freshened, but maybe the vintage look was thought to contribute a note of authenticity. I slid into the bench seat and pretended I was a family member waiting for the maid to bring me my breakfast of cream of wheat, zwieback, canned orange juice, and Ovaltine.

  In the center of the table, there was a stack of fliers detailing the number of bedrooms (six), the number of bathrooms (seven), and the pedigree of the house, which was on the National Register of Historic Places. I studied the particulars. According to the hype, the architect was indeed Ingrid Merchant, whose landmark work was coveted among home buyers in Montebello. A line in small print at the bottom read PRICE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST, meaning a sum so astronomical, the agent didn’t dare write it down. Someone had provided the floor plan, showing rooms that were surprisingly small and poorly laid out for a structure that appeared so grandiose from the outside.

  The listing was held by Montebello Luxury Properties. The agent was Nancy Harkness. A two-by-four color photograph of her showed a woman in her fifties with streaked blond hair worn in a shoulder-length bob immobilized by spray. I folded the flier and put it in my bag. I was already leaning toward not buying the place, but I wanted to be fair. With a property on the market as long as this one had been, there was probably some wiggle room in the asking price.

  It had been clever of Hallie to whisk me through
the dining room to the deck beyond, with its cozy propane heaters and its stunning views. I was so dazzled by the expensive wine and her exotic yellow caftan, it hadn’t occurred to me to look closer. Lucky for her. If I’d asked to use the ladies’ room, she’d have been forced to refuse. In the seven bathrooms I’d seen, there wasn’t even one roll of toilet paper.

  As there seemed to be nothing left to discover, I let myself out the front door and locked it behind me. I scrambled partway down the hill and shuffled through the underbrush until I found the combination lock. I returned the key to the lockbox and left the lock dangling ineffectually in the busted hasp. I was guessing the entire search (including breaking and entering) had taken less than thirty minutes. Since I was already in the Montebello area, I wound my way down the mountain and drove into the lower village.

  Montebello Luxury Properties was tucked into a quaint cottage with an undulating thatched roof, mullioned windows, and a Dutch door painted red. There was a modest strip of parking to one side, and I snagged the only available space. I locked my car and went in, activating an old-fashioned shopkeeper’s bell on a spring. I knew I wasn’t projecting the image of someone wealthy enough to be house hunting in Montebello, unless I was pegged as one of the eccentric rich dressed like a bag lady.

  The interior had been renovated and enlarged to a sprawling warren of offices, the entrance to which was guarded by a receptionist whose nameplate identified her as Kim Bass, Receptionist. Like I might have mistaken her for the company president. She was chatting on the phone, taking notes on a spiral-bound stenographer’s pad. When I reached her desk, her gaze rested on me briefly, then returned to her notebook, where she was busy scribbling information. She raised a finger, indicating she was aware of me.

  She said, “What time is the Cal-Air on the twenty-fourth?” She listened for a moment, saying, “Um-hum, uh-huh. And the Pan Am is at ten P.M.? What’s that number again?” She made a note. “Anything earlier out of ST? No, that’s fine. I was just asking on the off chance.”

  I watched her write: Cal-Air 2287 dep STA 5:45p, arr LAX 6:52p. Pan Am 154 dep LAX 10:00p, arr LHR 8:25am. The entire page was covered by fragments; phone numbers without identifiers, names without references indicated. She knew what she meant while she was taking notes and she assumed she’d remember what she was talking about, but when she came across the same page in four days, she’d be clueless. At the same time, she wouldn’t have the nerve to throw out her scribbles in case the notes turned out to be critical.

  I finally got tired of being ignored and ambled over to the wall-mounted photographs of the current agents. The women outnumbered the men, and most were closer to fifty years old than thirty. All of the names were easy to pronounce. Catherine Phillips was the #1 Sales Associate for Montebello Luxury Properties, selling over $23 million for each of the past three years. Several exclamation points were affixed to the news!!! If the office took a 6 percent cut and Ms. Phillips collected even half of that amount (minus expenses), she was doing better than most. In her photograph, she appeared to be in her mid- to late sixties and quite attractive.

  I sat down in one of the comfy upholstered visitors’ chairs. Kim was still deep in her phone conversation. While I was cooling my heels, I cast about for a cover story to present as soon as she was free. I’d intended to slide in with a ruse that would allow me to pump the listing agent for information about the Clipper estate. Specifically, I was curious how someone might have commandeered the property as Hallie had. There was bound to be a system in place, but I wasn’t sure how it worked. Agents from other companies had to be in possession of the combination that would open the lockbox that held the house key. Otherwise, Nancy Harkness would have to be present for every showing, a nuisance if nothing else.

  I let my gaze drift back to Ms. Bass, who was now asking about United and Delta. I placed her in her forties—dark-eyed, with red hair worn in a style that suggested a wind machine at work. She wore a tank top, and her arms were so beautifully muscled, I envied her. Her tan was uniformly dark except for a mottled streak along her left forearm, where she’d misapplied her Tan-in-a-Can. (When I try such products, my skin takes on an orange tinge and smells faintly spoiled.)

  To hurry her along, I got up and crossed to her desk. She made eye contact, apparently surprised to find me still waiting. She circled a set of numbers, murmured a few remarks, and hung up. She cocked her head in a deft move that shifted her torrent of hair. “May I help you?”

  I don’t know how she managed it, but her tone implied I was the last person on earth she’d be willing to accommodate.

  “I’m here to see Nancy Harkness.”

  No hesitation whatever. “She’s gone for the day.”

  I glanced at the wall clock. “It’s ten fifteen.”

  “She has buyers in from out of town. Is there anything else?”

  “Actually, there is. I need information about the Clipper estate. She’s the listing agent, isn’t she?”

  Kim widened her eyes and worked to suppress a smile. “Are you in the market for a house?”

  “I’m in the market for information about the Clipper estate.” I had no sense of humor whatever and I thought I’d better make that clear.

  “If you leave a number, I can have her call you later in the week. She’s tied up with clients for the next three days.”

  I thought rapidly to the mug shots of other agents in the office and remembered only one. “What about Catherine Phillips? Is she here?”

  Kim Bass, Receptionist, didn’t look favorably upon this request. “I doubt she’d have time to see you. What’s this in reference to?” She asked this as though I’d told her once and she’d forgotten what I said.

  “Business.”

  “And you are?”

  I took out a card and placed it on the desk in front of her. She picked up the card and read it, then focused on me fully, a response I’m often subject to from those who’ve had little or no experience with private investigators.

  “You’re a private detective?” she asked.

  “I am.”

  She waited for me to elaborate, and when I said nothing, she picked up the handset and pressed two numbers. Her expression suggested a smackdown was forthcoming from someone higher up in the chain of command. For this, she could hardly wait.

  “Good morning, Ms. Phillips. I have someone here who’d like to see you. No, ma’am, she doesn’t have an appointment.” There was a pause; Ms. Phillips was apparently asking for additional information.

  Kim shot me a look, and her gaze returned to the card I’d given her. “Kinsley Millhoney,” she said, pronouncing “Millhone” as though the second syllable rhymed with “baloney” instead of “bone.”

  I leaned forward. “Millhone. Accent on the first syllable.” No point in tackling the “Kinsley” issue.

  Kim corrected herself, saying, “Millhone.” As she listened, her manner underwent a subtle shift. “Well, yes, ma’am. I’ll let her know. I can do that,” she said. She hung up. “She’ll be right out. May I offer you coffee or bottled water?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I was as surprised as she was that Catherine Phillips intended to emerge from her office to greet me personally. No wonder she was first in her class.

  In a remarkably short period of time, she appeared from the corridor, holding out her hand. “So nice to meet you,” she said warmly. “I’m delighted you stopped by. Come on back to my office where we can chat.”

  We shook hands and I worked to make my grip as firm and forthright as hers.

  I wanted to send Kim Bass a smug look, but I restrained myself. Ms. Phillips ushered me into the corridor and then moved ahead so she could show me the way.

  She was elegantly dressed in an understated way: black wool gabardine suit with a tailored jacket and knee-length skirt, white silk shell, medium heels with sheer black hose. She was trim and her hair was unabashe
dly gray, blunt cut, with a sheen to it. She reminded me of my Aunt Susannah, with whom I’d been smitten on sight. In moments like this, the desire for a mother fills me with something akin to pain. Mine died when I was five, and I carry a vision of her like an exemplar against which all women are tested. Ordinarily, Rosie is as close to a mother as I get. Granted, she’s opinionated, bossy, and overbearing, but at least she cares. This woman was my ideal: warm, lovely, gracious, encompassing. My inner self mewed like a kitten while my outer self sailed on.

  “I hope Kim offered you coffee.”

  “She did. Thanks.”

  “You couldn’t have come at a better time. My ten o’clock canceled and I was at loose ends.”

  I said, “Ah.”

  This was worrisome. She was being so nice. She must have mistaken me for someone else, and what was I to say? I’d asked for her on a whim, and now I couldn’t think of one earthly reason I’d be quizzing her about the Clipper estate. Any hope of a convincing fib went straight out of my head. I pride myself on lying well, but I was drawing a blank. I wondered if I’d be forced to fall back on the truth—a risky proposition at best.

  Entering her office, this is what I learned: when you gross 6 percent of $23 million annually, you can decorate your personal space any way you want. Hers was understated elegance, like the public area in a high-class hotel, only with a number of personal touches thrown in. There were fresh flowers on her desk, and I could see angled silver picture frames that probably showcased family members: husband, children, a goofy, lovable dog rescued from the pound.