Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors (20 page)

Calendar, you are nervous.

Mundy came by in the afternoon; we had coffee, cookies, and a chat. He had brought another copy of the article with him in case I hadn’t seen it. Plus he had the
LA Times
, which had a small article in one of the local sections that even brought up the connection between the jewelry thefts at Swan Collins’ party and commented on the rising numbers of these types of crimes. But, it didn’t explore more on the still-hushed-up series of celebrity cat burglaries.

I summarized my findings of the meeting with Phil. “All I got out of it was that Swan may have enemies, some of them already known to me, who may have good motives.”

“And that Phil Krueger is not known as the hottest skirt hunter in town for nothing,” Mundy added.

“I bet he could have told me much more about Swan and Pretty, but his hands and tongue got in the way,” I said, frustrated.

“I think you should stick with your current strategy,” Mundy said. “You cover Fowler’s suspects and keep him happy. You try to find out as much as possible about other Hollywood suspects. And you try to find Rip Delaware. Keep all your bases covered.”
 

“What you call strategy, I call fish out of water,” I replied gloomily.

“What about a movie and a late dinner tonight to cheer you up?” Mundy proposed. “May help you to unwind a little bit.”

“Eh, hate to tell you this, but I already have a date tonight,” I said, uncomfortably.

Mundy was surprised but not totally taken aback; he knew that he would always play second fiddle when it came to dating. “All right, good for you. Do I know the lucky guy?”

 
“You met,” I started carefully. “Henry Steward.”
 

Mundy’s mouth fell open, and even though his skin was dark chocolate brown, he paled considerably. He closed it again with his right hand in a lame Marx Brothers imitation. “This is no joke, right?”
 

“No joke. He asked me out on Wednesday.”

“When you went there to report to the police?” Mundy looked shocked. “That guy is quick! Or desperate!”

“I am not sure what I am supposed to make out of it. He is the chief of police; I am a suspect. I am a victim. Do I want to be a lover? Do you consider it unethical, somehow?”

Mundy gave me a sly smile. “I consider it to be a cool way to date interesting women. Maybe he has a thing for hard ass criminal ladies?”

“He said he remembered me from before. We had met a reception or something, and he had laid eyes on me then.”

“I think he is divorced or a widower or something. I could have pulled the file for you beforehand at the office if you had told me,” Mundy offered.

“Thanks, anyway. It is better to keep this at a natural pace. If I read your briefing file beforehand, what would there be left to talk about?”

Mundy asked, “Is this serious or tactical for you?”

“Come again?”

“What I mean is: are you going out with him because he looks like a nice guy or because you want to charm him into an innocence mission?”

I looked out of the window into the garden to avoid the picture of him and me in the papers. “Believe it or not, I think he is a nice guy.”

Mundy said to himself, “This is where the story about the cat and the dog gets mighty interesting.”

Henry had decided to pick me up around seven, so the last hour before our first date I spent changing clothes in front of my wardrobe mirror. I didn’t do much dating with people I didn’t know, so I felt a little out of practice every time a guy asked me out for the first time. Was I supposed to look conservative when I went out with a senior police officer? Were trousers okay, or did I need to wear a skirt? I finally settled on my typical ever-fitting loose black slacks, a light black pullover, and my little black Prada backpack combination. I exchanged my sneakers for some Gucci flat ballerina style shoes that made me look a little more serious.
 

Well, wasn’t that a quick decision?
I thought, an hour and fifteen minutes later.
 

Light makeup and a brush through my hair made me look passable … but maybe too much makeup? My hair and I had both given each other up a long time ago, so the brush and a hairband were finished in under ten seconds. Back to the mirror, I decided it was well done; less was more. Just that second, the doorbell rang. I checked the video feed, buzzed Henry in, and waited at my bungalow door while he made his way through the garden and around the pool.

“Hey, I didn’t know that such a thing existed in Redondo Beach,” he said, marveling at the wonderful lush green garden, which resembled a well-kept jungle. “This all belongs to you?”

“No, the estate belongs to Mimi Gardener. She lives in the main house over there. She rents me this bungalow. I had it remodeled at my own expense when I moved in. I am having the pool cleaned on a regular basis, and we share the garden. She keeps much to herself anyway, so it is an easygoing arrangement. I maybe see her two times a week, max.”

“I liked her show in the sixties and seventies very much. I grew up with it,” Henry said earnestly. “Didn’t know that she was still around. She must be really old these days.”

After a quick tour of the house and garden, I locked up and we drove up to Santa Monica. Henry had a non-marked Ford SUV and cruised without pushiness or authority in the evening traffic. We had decided for a movie and dinner afterwards or the other way round, depending on ticket availability and appetite when we got there. We made small talk to loosen up a little bit, mostly trying to agree on the movie. After we had settled on the latest Jennifer Aniston vehicle and Italian food beforehand, we had already reached Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.
 

In one of the side streets, we found a suitable Italian place and settled down for wine and fish after a one-drink wait.
 

“Can I ask you a strange but necessary question?” Henry asked over our starters.

“Sure, if I may refuse to give an incriminating answer,” I said easily. It had been a nice evening so far. We were sitting outside under the canopy, the gaslight heaters radiating warmth. I hoped that he didn’t spoil it now by talking shop.

“Okay, of course. Have you ever dated a policeman before?” Henry asked sheepishly. “The reason I am asking is: a regular girl dating a policeman is sometimes a little uncomfortable around a policeman. She’s always thinking about all the parking tickets she never paid, that she cheated on her taxes last year, and that the Gucci skirt she is wearing came from a truck sale in a Hollywood Boulevard back alley. I’m telling you: it stifles the mood considerably.” Henry took a sip of wine in good humor.

“Actually, I did. Well, not the stuff you mentioned. I did date a policeman before, I mean. I was attracted to a homicide detective about a year ago; it didn’t work out in the end because we both were too occupied with the case we were working on.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “A case
we
were working on? You have any detective blood in you?”

I laughed. “See that’s how much I identified with the case. I somehow get trapped in these kind of helping-out situations. Anyway, we dated, but he lived in San Diego, and neither of us was ready or willing for a long-distance relationship.” Ah, those easy lies we tell.

“Too bad. Or not. I mean, it gave me my chance,” Henry said.

“Can I ask you a question?” It was my turn.

“Sure, fire away. Same disclaimer applies.”

“Why did you ask me out?”

“Same reason you said yes,” was the disarming answer.

After a minute of common consideration, we both had to giggle, and Henry said, “To save the evening, let’s stick to psychologically harmless issues. Where are you from, originally?”

“Born around San Diego,” I answered. “My parents were late hippies and raised my sister and me in a large commune.”

“Those things still exist?”

“Not anymore, I think they finally closed down around 2000. I saw my first television set when I was about fourteen and visited the home of my school friend Marge.” Better leave out the violent stuff.

“No kidding, I heard of those people but never believed that they made it beyond the seventies,” Henry said, impressed. “How did you find your way out and end up being a jeweler?”

I didn’t correct him about the jeweler part. “My parents decided to leave us the choice of what we wanted to be. In order to make the options equal, they left the commune and became like suburban hippies. They have an eclectic house in a better part of San Diego and raised my sister and me there from the time we were teenagers.”

“And what did you choose to be in the end? And your sister?”

“My sister Sunny went to college and law university, married and divorced a corporate lawyer, and became one herself. She lives in Dallas working for the large oil corporations. Her relationship with our parents was pretty tense at first, the oil-meets-capital thing, of course, but the going has softened a little bit over the last few years. Sunny is not a hardcore Republican anymore, and Mom and Dad became less radical.”

“And what about you?”

“I went to Berkeley, which brought my cup to overflow. How many leftist ideas and ideals can you stand? I stayed to finish my BA in liberal arts and decided to learn a craft instead. My uncle Mortimer was a jeweler in Manhattan, and he took me as an apprentice. I liked it. I turned out to be talented and dedicated. The rest is history.”

“And you never got married or had children,” Henry stated and immediately saw in my darkening eyes that he had hit a weak spot. “Sorry, that seems to be a hard question for you. I can see it in your face that you were hurt somewhere.”

Henry had a very good way of treating me, but I stuck with the softened official version. “I was engaged seriously to a very nice man in New York City a few years back. It didn’t work out the way we planned it, to put it lightly. After various things had been said and done, I packed up my things, moved back west to Redondo Beach, and started building up my own crafting style and shop.”

Henry still saw the dark clouds passing my eyes and was good at changing subjects again. “And you are pretty active in that famous charity, Children Unreserved?”

“You must have googled me! Children Unreserved is the brainchild of Margaret Peters, and she has a genius talent for raking in donation money from LA’s upper crust. I got to know her through a charity auction where I had donated one of my finer pieces, and we instantly hit if off together. After a while, she offered me a seat on the board, and I took it.”

Henry nodded. “You have special sectors of good-doing?”

“The foundation splits its resources into the bay area, the US, and the rest of the world. We finance mostly educational programs that help the children to help themselves—schooling, hygiene, health, handicraft skills to build pumps and repair simple machines, farming skills. Not so much the help that makes them depend on us, like food deliveries. We are making good progress, but it never ends.”

Eventually we skipped the movie and took a walk on the beach instead. It was already dark, and the Santa Monica surf roared onto the beach. In the background, the pier lights were blinking, and music was drifting over from several pier attractions and cruising convertibles on PCH. It had stopped raining completely but was still chilly.

“Barefoot not too cold for you?” Henry inquired but then corrected himself, “Oh, sure! I forgot, the hippies’ daughter.”

“Sounds crazy, but it’s true,” I smiled. “As a child, I walked almost exclusively barefoot; it never snows in Southern California. My first pair of sneakers was a major milestone in my life. They were presented to me a few days before my first contact with public high school. So, what about your life? All I know from my lawyer Terrence Peters is that you are a good cop and were strongly going in Orange County.”

Henry laughed a little. “Good old Terrence. He is right in a way. We fought crime fiercely back then; both of us were hungry crime busters. He was the law, and I was the order.” He gave a reminiscing smile. “Let’s say I put my life’s emphasis on career instead of personal life, and my family didn’t make it.” He didn’t sound depressed when he said it. From Henry’s mouth, it sounded like a wisdom grown over time from a man who had learned a painful lesson and became a stronger man through it.

“Sounds sad. But probably similar to a lot of cops’ lives,” I said.

“That is true, but in the end, what do you have? What have I really achieve in life so far? When I didn’t like the answer, I changed my life.”

“Like Terrence,” I drew the parallel. “He left public service, too, and went into private practice. And from what I heard, it was mainly due to personal reasons.”

“Well, I like serving the public. And Redondo is much nicer than Orange County. Smaller area, much less crime, and much easier to control. I’ve held the job for some years now, have a great track record, managed to pick up tennis and sailing, and have time to go out on a date now and then.” Henry smiled. “That was impossible to think of in my old life.”

“And your former wife?”

“Sheila married again after a few years. She was … well,
is
an attractive woman, and she got herself some computer guy who is home on a regular basis. Even had another kid.”

“So you had kids, too?”

“John just turned fifteen, is an ace in tennis and a great kid, not such a troubled teenager like you hear now so often. Henry Junior is twenty years old and goes to college in North Carolina. Has a full football scholarship, which makes my financial life a lot easier. He’s a great guy, too. Has had a steady girlfriend since he was about seventeen, and I bet he’ll grow old with her. We go sailing or for games regularly.”

“Sounds like your ex-wife and you did a great job,” I said.

“More like Sheila’s and Marcus’ success. I mean, we’ve been divorced for about twelve years now.” Henry picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his hands. “Life changed us all.”

We didn’t pick up that thread of the conversation again, but his last line reverberated in our heads for the rest of the evening.