After hesitating, Sergeant Murillo looked at his officer and said in an even quieter voice, “Adams told me all about that, and yes, the ladder’s still in place on the carport roof where the dead man left it. But you didn’t know this would happen. It was just what-if speculation on your part. The place looked perfectly secure. You don’t have a crystal ball. Nobody could’ve anticipated this, Viv. You can’t blame yourself. The dead guy’s to blame. Nobody else.”
Viv Daley put the tot in the playpen and she immediately began crying and held her arms out to Viv saying, “Mommy, Mommy.”
“She thinks you’re her mommy,” Sergeant Murillo said. “Dear lord.”
Snuffy Salcedo, still in the common hallway with Hollywood Nate, said, “Jesus Christ. This is too awful.”
Nate said nothing and Snuffy turned and went downstairs.
“I gotta get outta here,” Viv said to Sergeant Murillo.
“Viv,” he said. “You and your partner will have to be separated while you wait for FID. We’re gonna see a lot of people around here in a little while. We’ll transport the little girl.”
When Viv got to the doorway, Hollywood Nate stood aside for her. She turned once to look back at the child in the playpen who held out her arms to Viv and between sobs said more urgently, “Mommy!”
Viv descended the stairwell to the lobby floor and found four cops from Watch 3 keeping neighbors away from the crime scene tape. Snuffy Salcedo was talking to Flotsam and Jetsam, who were in the street directing traffic and waving the criminalists’ van from SID into a parking space. Several of the uniformed cops whispered to one another, an indication that word had spread quickly about what Viv Daley had found in the third-floor apartment.
Flotsam said somberly to Jetsam, “Dude, remember how the Oracle always told us that doing good police work was the most fun we’d ever have in our entire lives?”
Jetsam said, “Yeah, and Viv and Georgie did real good police work when they lit up that fucking maniac.”
“True,” Flotsam said, “but I don’t think this night’s going on their desktop in the category of fun.”
Georgie was standing on the sidewalk outside the tape with the watch commander, Lieutenant O’Reilly, who was awaiting the imminent arrival of homicide detectives and the administrative team from Force Investigation Division, as well as the coroner’s body snatchers. But when he saw Viv emerge from the building, he left the lieutenant and approached her.
She looked at her partner, at the anxiety in his eyes, and Georgie said to her, “I never thought it could happen, sis. Honest to god, I never thought for a second that anything like this could happen.”
“Please, Gypsy, shut the fuck up,” Viv Daley said.
NINE
Raleigh Dibble went to work for the Bruegers two weeks after his employment interview, and Leona Brueger was so pleased with him that she decided to leave with Rudy Ressler for Tuscany the following week. Julius Hampton did not attempt to sabotage the job for his employee despite his disappointment and irritation at losing Raleigh on such short notice. When Leona’s attorney phoned Julius Hampton for a reference, the old man truthfully said that Raleigh had been a splendid butler, cook, driver, and companion. He added that he hated to lose Raleigh but he could not compete with the money that Leona was offering.
The thing that clinched it with Leona Brueger was Raleigh’s work in the kitchen. He demonstrated what he could do during an impromptu luncheon for Leona and a few friends, including Rudy Ressler. Raleigh prepared a simple coq au vin, minus the diced pork in case anyone had religious dietary issues. Leona Brueger’s Guatemalan housekeeper and cook, Marta Sandoval, was sixty-six years old and planning to retire anyway, since the house was going to be put on the market. She told Leona Brueger that she was not jealous of the new man and was delighted to receive three months’ severance pay. She planned on moving to the home of her eldest daughter in East Los Angeles.
Raleigh decided during that impromptu luncheon that Julius Hampton had been right about Rudy Ressler. The schmuck actually complained that Raleigh’s quiche appetizer had a “pinch” too much salt in it.
Pinch this, you phony, Raleigh thought, but replied, “I’m so sorry, sir. Can I get you anything else? A fruit and cheese plate, perhaps? A few sips of delicate Chablis with a hint of strawberry will cleanse any salt from your palate. May I get you a glass?”
Raleigh went to the butler’s pantry and poured the director a glass of screw-top Chardonnay that he used for cooking and placed it before the director, saying, “It’s an amusing little Chablis, sir. The hint of strawberry is balanced by an essence of mint, I believe.”
Rudy Ressler passed the glass under his nose, sampled a tiny sip, and said, “Yes, I can taste the strawberry and the mint, but it’s not overpowering.” He sipped again and said, “That’s a fine choice, Raleigh. Thank you.”
Raleigh Dibble was willing to put up with just about anything in that house, especially after Leona Breuger promised him an unspecified bonus when she returned from Tuscany. She told him that she would then begin preparing the house for what she called “the big fall sale of Casa Brueger.” Nigel Wickland told Raleigh that when she felt the urge, Leona Brueger could be “crazily generous” and that the bonus might be substantial.
Raleigh didn’t even mind Leona Brueger’s eighty-seven-year-old brother-in-law, Marty Brueger, who stayed in the guest cottage almost all of the time, watching the E! network with his dentures in a glass beside his chair grinning at him. The wizened old coot never so much as entered the main house unless he was looking for whiskey, so Raleigh tried to make sure that the liquor cabinet in the cottage was well stocked.
Marty Brueger was shrunken from age and spinal stenosis, and he spent most of his time in his chair with his legs elevated on a pillow. Marty had a nest of wiry hair with some surprising sprouts of black growing among the dull gray strands. He wore thick glasses that made his brown eyes appear enormous and he looked like an ancient frazzled parrot. Leona Brueger told Raleigh that her brother-in-law had been an energetic skirt chaser until recent years, and his uncontrolled libido had been the cause of expensive paternity lawsuits when he was a young man, and sexual harassment lawsuits when he got old.
She said to Raleigh, “Just make sure Marty has some T and A videos to look at and good whiskey to drink, and he’ll be no trouble.”
One of the first things the old man said to Raleigh was “Can you make good chili? Since Chasen’s closed down, nobody in this goddamn town can make a decent bowl of chili. I miss Dave and Maud Chasen like I miss my prostate.”
“Mr. Brueger,” Raleigh said, “you’re in luck. Back when I was in college, I worked one summer as a busboy at Chasen’s. I kept my eyes open and my palate on high alert. My chili won’t disappoint you.”
Of course it was a complete lie, but Raleigh had made enough chili in his day that he figured he could please the geezer, and he did.
Raleigh had everything well under control by the time Leona Brueger and Rudy Ressler actually left for Italy. Marta Sandoval stayed on for only two days after her employer was gone, which was just long enough to tidy up the house and change all the towels and bed linens. With the help of two grandsons, she moved all of her clothes and belongings from the housekeeper’s quarters to a rented van, and she was gone. And then, with Marty Brueger tucked away in the cottage most of the time, Raleigh Dibble had the entire Brueger estate to himself, and it was sweet.
The security system was sophisticated but Raleigh learned it easily enough. The outside lights and video cameras were elaborate and took a bit of practice. He only had to take Marty Brueger to dinner two times in the first two weeks, once to Musso and Frank, of course, and then to the Formosa Café. The elderly Hollywood rich still loved the few old hangouts remaining. Raleigh was sure that the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel would be on the itinerary as soon as the old boy remembered clearly that he’d once loved their Neil McCarthy salad.