‘Well, thank you for your time,’ Lorraine said, and smiled. Kendall nodded, already starting to move to the archway. ‘Oh, just one thing,’ Lorraine went on, ‘I know you said you were at home the morning Mr Nathan was shot. What time did you leave?’
‘To come to work, just after ten.’
‘I don’t suppose you made a telephone call to my office that morning?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I asked if you called my agency, Mrs Nathan,’ Lorraine repeated. ‘I received a phone call on the morning of the shooting — in fact it must have been made shortly after the gun was fired.’
‘Why do you ask? Did whoever it was say it was me?’ Kendall came towards Lorraine, her eyes sharp and her voice rising. It suddenly sounded less modulated, almost coarse.
‘No, the caller identified herself as Cindy Nathan, but Cindy says she didn’t make the call.’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me. What did this person say?’
‘Oh, that she needed help, just shot her husband. It didn’t sound like Cindy’s voice.’ She smiled at Kendall. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think it sounded like yours — until just now. I thought there might be some similarity, but if you’re sure you didn’t make the call...’
‘I have never met you or spoken to you before in my life,’ Kendall said, a considerably less polished Mid-Western accent now noticeable in her voice. ‘I never called you, but I’ll give you some advice. Don’t believe a word that dumb bitch tells you. She’s a liar. And don’t get sucked in by the big baby blue eyes and the tears. She can turn them on at will. I know, believe me, I know.’ She paused and made an effort to regain her poise. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.’
Lorraine started to walk to the door, then stopped. ‘Can I just ask you what kind of car you drive? ‘
Kendall looked penetratingly at Lorraine. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just to eliminate things, you know.’
‘I drive a 1996 Mitsubishi jeep. It’s convenient for carrying paintings. It’s two-tone and has about twenty-five thousand on the clock. Is there anything else?’
Lorraine opened the gallery door. ‘No, not at the present. I appreciate your talking to me, and I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time. Would you mind if I came back if I need to talk to you again?’
Kendall looked at her calculatingly. ‘No, I don’t suppose so, but call first.’ She went back to her desk, opened a drawer and took out a business card. ‘I’ll give you my home number as well.’ She used her Mont Blanc, bending over the desk.
‘Mrs Nathan?’ A young man walked in through a small rear door, not seeing Lorraine. ‘I’ve unloaded all the canvases — you still want me?’
Lorraine looked into the rear of the shop. She could not see him clearly, but she was almost certain it was the same black youth who had walked past her out back.
‘Give me a couple minutes,’ Kendall snapped, but the man remained where he was. ‘I’ve got a workshop outside in my yard — I make up the frames and things like that. You have to have a rapid turnover in a gallery to keep the public interested.’
Again Kendall turned and this time told the man to get out. He disappeared. ‘He doesn’t have the right attitude for customers.’
‘Do you sell mostly to passing trade?’ Lorraine asked.
A few come in, but it’s mostly by appointment.’
‘How does that work?’ Lorraine asked pleasantly.
Kendall’s condescending manner earlier was now firmly re-established. ‘We have a client list and I send out an invitation every time I have a new artist I want to promote. I also work with a few designers — you know, wall hangings and textiles and so on.’ She smiled with sly eyes, showing a chipped tooth. Lorraine’s mind was racing: why was the woman suddenly being so friendly? Had it been the reference to the phone call? Oddly enough, Lorraine preferred her cool and snide. This smiling, over-helpful act made her suspicious.
‘I won’t hold you up any longer,’ she said. ‘Thanks again.’
The meter was almost up. Lorraine bleeped the car open, got in and sat a moment. Kendall had said she hadn’t made the call, but had been at home with no alibi when it was made. She was clearly jealous of Cindy Nathan, and had continued to have a close relationship with her ex-husband. To some extent she benefited from his death, and, most importantly, she had made no secret about driving a two-tone Mitsubishi jeep, as described by Nathan’s housekeepers. She also employed a young black guy. Maybe Cindy hadn’t made up the man she said she had seen at the house. Kendall also knew about the phone tapes, and had admitted that she wanted to recover the videos. Someone had broken into Lorraine’s office and poured acid over the phone tapes and, according to Cindy, only two other people had known that they were there. Harry Nathan’s ex-wives.
Lorraine slipped on her safety-belt and started the engine. She glanced behind her, indicated and pulled out into the street. As she drove, she squinted at the petrol gauge and saw that the tank was nearly empty. She pulled in at the old Union 76 gas station on Little Santa Monica, a remarkable piece of classic sixties construction, like the wingspan of a great bird. She asked the attendant to fill up the car and check the oil, while she went in to buy a pack of cigarettes. She went to the ladies’ and returned to find that the station attendant had raised the bonnet of her Mercedes.
‘How much?’ she said.
The man turned towards her. ‘How much you worth?’ He crooked his finger and motioned her closer. ‘I only noticed because the top of my pen dropped into the engine when I was unscrewing the oil cap. Have a look at this. Your brake cable’s been sliced almost through. Dunno how long it’d have been before...’ He made a screeching noise and walloped the side of the car. ‘You got no brakes, lady, an’ this’ll have to go up on the ramp because it ain’t safe to drive the length of the street.’
‘How long do you think they’ve been like this?’
He pulled a face, sticking out his bulldog jaw. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know, it’s a clean cut — like, it’s not wear and tear, and you would have known about that, honey, believe me. So, maybe recent. You got any enemies? I’d give the cops a call if I was you — this is fuckin’ dangerous.’
Lorraine straightened up. ‘Can you fix them?’
‘Sure.’
She sat on a low wall beside the garage as the man set to work. She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking. How long had they been cut? When were they cut? Most importantly, who the hell had done it? Kendall Nathan? The woman had had no chance to get at the car, had been with her continuously. The black man? But Kendall had had no opportunity to tell him to do anything. Lorraine found herself smoking cigarettes down to the filter and lighting the next from the butt.
What had she unwittingly uncovered? There had to be a reason for someone to be prepared to kill her, or at the very least to want her to have a life-threatening accident.
The car wasn’t going to be ready for some considerable time, so she called a cab and went to the office, where she filled in Decker about her car.
‘Did you call the police?’
Lorraine shut her eyes, then hit the desk. She’d forgotten to meet Jim Sharkey. ‘Shit, I gotta go. I arranged to meet the cop on the Nathan case. I’ll get a cab.’
Jim Sharkey looked at his watch. He’d had two cappuccinos and had had breakfast again in lieu of lunch. Now he was getting sick of sitting outside on a hard chair on the patio waiting for Lorraine — the Silver Spoon was one of the few places left in LA where smoking was still allowed, but plush surroundings weren’t their strong suit. He was just about to walk out when a cab pulled up, Lorraine got out and walked towards the diner. She was a great looker, Mrs Lorraine Page, he thought, as she eased her body between the tables — nice easy strides, tight figure, long legs... He was getting hard as his eyes travelled up from her crotch to her bosom — not as big as he went for, but they looked a nice handful, firm.