Stan Bartell stepped up close. Late fifties, Palm Springs tan. A big man with powerful shoulders, a hawk nose, thin lips, a bulky chin. Waxy white hair was drawn back in a ponytail. He wore black-framed eyeglasses, a thin gold chain around his neck, and an iridescent burgundy velvet robe that brushed the ground.
Milo produced his badge, but Bartell didn’t come any closer.
“What about my daughter?”
“Sir, it would really be better if we came in.”
Bartell removed his glasses and studied us. His eyes were close-set, dark, analytic. “You’re Beverly Hills police?”
“ L.A. ”
“Then what are you doing here- I’m going to check you out, so if this is a scam, you’ve been warned.” He returned to the house, closed the doors behind him.
We waited on the sidewalk. Headlights appeared at the south end of the block, followed by bass thumps as a Lincoln Navigator drove by slowly. Behind the wheel was a kid who looked no older than fifteen, baseball hat worn backwards, hip-hop music bellowing from the interior. The SUV continued to Sunset, cruising the Strip.
Five minutes passed with no word or sign from Stan Bartell.
I said, “How much detail will Beverly Hills PD give him?”
“Who knows?”
We waited another couple of minutes. Milo ran his hand along the white fence slats. Eyed the security sign. I knew what he was thinking: all the safety measures in the world.
The electric gate slid open. Stan Bartell stepped out of his house and stood on his front steps and waved us in. When we got to the door, he said, “The only thing they know about LAPD being here is something called a notification on a kid my daughter knows. Let me see your badge just to be safe.”
Milo showed it to him.
“You’re the one,” said Bartell. “So what’s with Gavin Quick?”
“You know him?”
“Like I said, my daughter knows him.” Bartell shoved his hands in the pockets of his robe. “Does notification mean what I think it does?”
“Gavin Quick was murdered,” said Milo.
“What does my daughter have to do with it?”
“A girl was found with Gavin. Young, blond-”
“Bullshit,” said Bartell. “Not Kayla.”
“Where is Kayla?”
“Out. I’ll call her on my cell phone. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
We followed him inside. The entry hall was twenty feet high, marble-floored, a lot larger than the Quick’s living room. The house was an orgy of beige, except for amethyst-colored glass flowers everywhere. Huge, frameless, abstract canvases were all painted in variations upon that same noncommittal earth tone.
Wordlessly, Stan Bartell led us past several other huge rooms to a studio at the rear. Wood floors and a beamed ceiling. A couch, two folding chairs, a grand piano, an electric organ, synthesizers, mixers, tape decks, an alto sax on a stand, and a gorgeous archtop guitar that I recognized as a fifty-thousand-dollar D’Aquisto in an open case.
On the walls were framed gold records.
Bartell slumped onto the couch, pointed an accusing finger at Milo, and pulled a phone out of his pocket. He dialed, put the phone to his ear, waited.
No answer.
“Doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. Then his bronze face crumpled, and he broke into wracking sobs.
Milo and I stood by helplessly.
Finally, Bartell said, “What did that fucking little bastard do to her?”
“Gavin?”
“I told Kaylie he was weird, stay away. Especially since the accident- you know about his fucking accident, right? Must’ve had some kind of brain damage the little fu-”
“His mother-”
“Her. Crazy bitch.”
“You’ve had problems with them.”
“She’s nuts,” said Bartell.
“In what way?”
“Just weird. Never leaves the house. The problem was their son going after my angel.” Bartell’s fists were huge. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and rocked. “Oh, Jesus, this is bad, this is so fucking bad!” His eyes sparked with panic. “My wife- she’s in Aspen. She doesn’t ski, but she goes there in the summer. For shopping, the air. Oh shit, she’ll die, she’ll just crumple up and fucking die.”
Bartell bent and grasped his knees and rocked some more. “How could this happen?”
Milo said, “Why do you think Gavin Quick would’ve hurt Kayla?”
“Because he was- the kid was weird. Kaylie knew him from high school. She broke up with him a bunch of times, but he kept coming back, and she kept letting him down too easy. Little bastard would show up, sniff around even when Kaylie wasn’t in. Bugging me- like kissing up to the old man would help. I work at home, I’m trying to get some work done, and the little fucker is bullshitting me about music, trying to have a conversation like he knows something. I do a lot of jingles, have deadlines, you think I want to discuss alternative punk with some stupid kid? He’d sit himself down, never want to leave. Finally, I told the maid to stop letting him in.”
“Obsessive,” I said.
Bartell hung his head.
“Was he more obsessive since the accident?” said Milo.
Bartell looked up. “So he did it.”
“Unlikely, Mr. Bartell. No weapon was found at the scene, so my instinct is he was just a victim.”
“What are you saying? What the fuck are you-”
Footsteps- light footsteps- made all three of us turn.
A pretty young girl in low-riding, skintight jeans that looked oiled and a black midriff blouse exposing a flat, tan abdomen stood in the doorway. Two belly-button pierces, one studded with turquoise. Over her shoulder was a black silk bag embroidered with silk flowers. She wore too much makeup, had a beak nose and a strong chin. Her hair was long, straight, the color of new hay. The blouse revealed luminous cleavage. A big gold “K” on a chain rested in the cleft.
Stan Bartell’s tan faded to blotchy beige. “What the-” He slapped his hand over his heart, then reached out toward the girl with both hands. “Baby, baby!”
The girl frowned, and said, “What, Dad?”
CHAPTER 3
Stan Bartell said, “Where the hell have you been?”
Kayla Bartell stared at her father as if he’d gone mad. “Out.”
“With who?”
“Friends.”
“I called your cell.”
Kayla shrugged. “I switched it off. The club was loud, I couldn’t have heard it anyway.”
Bartell started to say something, then drew her near and hugged her. She glanced at us, as if seeking rescue.
“Da-ad.”
“Thank God,” said Bartell. “Thank almighty God.”
“Who are these people, Daddy?”
Bartell let go of his daughter and glowered at us. “Leave.”
Milo said, “Ms. Bartell-”
“No!” shouted Bartel. “Out. Now.”
“Who are they, Daddy?”
“They’re no one.”
Milo said, “At some point, I’d like to talk to Kayla.”
“When pigs take the Concorde.”
When we reached the door, Bartell stood on his front steps and jabbed a remote control. The gates began sliding, and Milo and I barely made it through before they clanged shut.
Bartell slammed his door.
Milo said, “Your friendly neighborhood policeman, making friends and spreading good cheer wherever he goes.”
As we drove away, he said, “Interesting how Bartell assumed Gavin had done something to Kayla. You used the word ‘obsessive.’ ”
“Bartell’s hostility could just be resentment at someone sniffing around his angel. But obsessiveness can be a side effect of head injury.”
“What about that pigsty room? Kid’s mother claims he used to be neat. That fits with brain damage?”
“Catch a strong blow to the frontal lobes, and there can be all sorts of changes.”
“Permanent?”