“Not since I knew her. She said they made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”
“Do you know the details?”
“Something like thirty grand just to be on call, then thirty bucks for every hour over ten per week that she actually worked. She was putting away decent dough. Also, she did tutoring at night, for that she got eighty, ninety an hour, more if she sniffed out the family was filthy rich.”
“How much tutoring did she do?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. But she was busy, plenty of times I called to go out and got her machine. The pressure worked for her.”
“The pressure?”
“On the kids. She didn’t tutor just dumb kids, she had smart ones, too, parents pushing on them. She told me sometimes a kid would come in with an A-minus, parents wouldn’t let up till the minus went away.”
“These are students from Windsor Prep we’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” said Fidella. “She did SAT tutoring. And that other test, I forget the name.”
I said, “The ACT.”
“That’s the one. She said all those tests were stupid and meaningless but God bless whoever invented them because rich people were so insecure they needed their kids to be perfect, she could charge ’em big bucks for something they could do themselves.”
“What was her training?”
“What do you mean?”
“To tutor SATs.”
“She went to college.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere in the East, I don’t know. The thing about Elise, she didn’t like to talk about herself.” He spread his palms. “I’m the kind of guy, you want to know something about me, ask. Elise was just the opposite. ‘We’re not going there, Sal.’ She said that a lot. ‘We’re not going there.’ But I stuck with her, she was good-looking, could be a ton of fun.”
Milo said, “The times she got moody and nursed the bottle, did things ever get unpleasant?”
“What do you mean?”
“She ever get aggressive?”
“Elise? You kidding? She was a pussycat. Like I said, she’d just go into her room.”
“And you left.”
“No point staying.”
“Did things ever get argumentative?”
“How can you argue with someone who won’t talk?”
“That musta been frustrating, Sal.”
“I figured it out soon enough.”
“Any idea what happened to Elise’s computer?”
“Huh?”
“Her computer’s gone.”
“Really.”
“You didn’t notice?”
“I was looking for Elise, not some computer.”
“What kind of computer was it?”
“I dunno.”
“Laptop or desktop?”
“Laptop—a Dell, I think.”
“When’s the last time you saw it?”
Fidella’s mouth screwed up. “Hell if I know. You’re saying the killer took it? Makes sense if it was those bastards from the school.”
“Why’s that?”
“Maybe Elise learned something weird about some rich family, put it on her computer. That makes sense, right?”
“Anything’s possible, Sal.” Milo uncrossed his legs. “I need to ask this: What was your schedule the day before you discovered Elise?”
“The whole day?”
“As much of it as you can recall.”
Fidella brushed his soul patch with the side of his thumb. “You’re asking this because I was the one found her?”
“There are basic questions we always need to ask, Sal.”
“Fine, I get it, no offense taken.” But the blue eyes had narrowed and Fidella’s thighs tightened, lifting his shoe-tips above the carpet. “Let me just say one thing: Sal Fidella loves women and respects them.”
“Granted,” said Milo. “We still need to ask.”
“Where was I that day?” said Fidella. “I was at Star Toys and Novelties, San Pedro Street, the toy district. Why was I there? Trying to get a job repping crap from China. They had an ad on Craigslist for an opening. I show up, it’s all bullshit, they had to run it to show they were being fair, know what I mean? They’re all Chinese, every one of them, some of them didn’t even speak no English. You’d think my speaking English would be a good thing, right? Wrong.”
“They wanted someone Chinese.”
“They didn’t come out and say it but it was pretty damn obvious when they asked me if I spoke Mandarin. They couldn’t put that in the ad? Must speak Mandarin?”
“What a hassle,” said Milo. “So what time were you there?”
“Let’s see… the appointment was for eleven. I showed up early, maybe a quarter to, they kept me waiting till noon, I’m in there maybe five minutes, sitting and listening to the guy behind the desk talk in Chinese over the phone. Then he smiles, walks me out, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
“So you were out of there shortly after twelve.”
“Guess so.”
“What about the early part of the morning? What time did you wake up?”
“You’re kidding,” said Fidella. “C’mon, guys, I loved Elise.”
“We still need to ask, Sal.”
“What you need to do is go to that fuckin’ school and find out who was hassling Elise. She hated the place, called it a… hotbed of stupidity and pretentiousness. She only stayed there for the money.”
“We’ll be heading to the school soon as we finish talking to you. What time did you wake up?”
Fidella exhaled. “Maybe eight, eight thirty? I didn’t have to get downtown until eleven, I wasn’t exactly setting the alarm. What’d I do from then till I left at ten thirty? Real exciting, guys. I had some breakfast, watched some shows I TiVo’d—Rides, they made over a Chevy pickup, if you wanna know. And Repo Men: Stealing for a Living, some guy with a semi got his entire rig taken away, talk about pissed. Then I took a shower, got dressed, drove to Star Toys, and got shafted by the Chinese.”
“What happened after you left Star Toys?”
“I ate lunch,” said Fidella. “Philippe’s, on Alameda. The French dip. Will they remember me? Hell, no, place was jammed like it always is, I waited in line, ate my sandwich, had a beer, got the hell outta there. Where’d I go next—by then it’s probably one thirty, two. I drive back to San Pedro, looking for other places I can contact for a job interview, if the signs got no Chinese lettering just English. Did I follow up when I got home? Hell, yeah, with half a dozen. Did it make a difference? Hell, no. Oh, yeah, I also drove around the garment district a little. Never repped clothes before, but it’s how you do it, not what you’re doing that counts. Did that work out any better? Hell, no.”
“Sorry,” said Milo.
“For what?”
“Tough times.”
“Hey,” said Fidella, “it happens. You wanna cheer me up? Find out who killed Elise and leave me with ’em. Five minutes.”
“You’re sure she was killed?”
“What?”
“There’s no official cause of death yet, Sal.”
“You said you were Homicide.”
“We look into suicides, as well.”
“Suicide? Why would Elise commit suicide?”
“She was moody, Sal. Sometimes moods get the best of people.”
“She wasn’t moody like that,” said Fidella.
“Like what?”
“Like suicidal. She never talked about ending it.”
I said, “Those times she’d drink and lock herself into her room, there was no way to know how she felt.”
“But she always came out of it. And got herself in a good mood.”
“How long did she take to cheer up?”
“Like… a day. She’d call me, let’s go out, Sal, have a nice dinner.”
“Was it ever longer than a day?”
“I dunno… maybe sometimes it was two.” Fidella cracked his knuckles. “Elise wasn’t some nut-job, you guys are on the wrong path if you’re thinking suicide. Lots of times, I saw her happy. Why would she kill herself? She did okay money-wise, was even talking about getting a bigger place.”