"H" Is for Homicide (5 page)

She wasn't at her desk, but she appeared a half second later, eyes pinned on a Dixie cup filled with water to the brim. She wore a red cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up. Her complexion was fresh and clear, her skin shiny with good health. Her coloring was the stuff of magazine ads. "Here we are," she said, and then she glanced up at me with some surprise. "Oh. Did they leave? The pair that was here?"

"They went that-a-way. You missed them by a half a second."

She peered out into the corridor, but there was no sign of them. "Well, that's weird. She said she wasn't feeling good, so I went to get her this."

"She looked okay to me."

Mary's mouth pulled down with puzzlement and she set the cup of water on her desk. "I wish they'd hung around. I was hoping you could talk to them."

"About what?"

She shook her head. "They're investigators from the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute. She was, at any rate. He's a special agent with the California Department of Insurance." She handed me the woman's business card.

"Him? Are you sure?"

"He was hired last month. She's been showing him the ropes."

"He looked like a hood."

She laughed uncomfortably as if she were somehow responsible for his appearance now that I'd mentioned it. "He did, didn't he? It's that tacky coat, I'm sure. I'd never let Peter out in public in a thing like that. Have a seat. Did you talk to Bibianna Diaz? God, now where'd I stick her file?" She sat down and began to sort through a stack of fat manila folders on her desk.

"Nope. She's still out. I may take my camera with me next time I go over there. Maybe I can snap a picture of her doing backflips on the lawn." I passed on the information about "Lola Flores" and the two other insurance companies. "Bibianna has to be running a second scam as Lola Flores. There's no telling how many other claims she's filed concurrently."

Mary was properly incensed. "Oh, God, I don't believe this. I'll get on it right away and let 'em know what's going on."

"Just make sure they start documenting any dealings they have with her. When we send the files to ICPI, they can send theirs along, too. It should make quite a splash."

I was still half distracted by the couple who'd just left. I checked the woman's business card. The ICPI logo was legitimate, looking somehow like a place mat complete with cutlery. According to the card, she was Karen Hedgepath from an office in Los Angeles. The problem was she didn't look like any ICPI investigator I'd ever met. Most of them are real button-down types – ties, white shuts, dark conservative business suits. This woman looked like a rock star in civilian clothes. I couldn't believe the regional manager would tolerate the punk hairstyle, let alone the spike-heeled shoes.

"Here we go," Mary said, extracting a file from the middle of the stack. The folder was marked "Diaz," a piece of scratch paper with the new address clipped to the front. She reached for an invoice stapled to the envelope it had arrived in. "I just got a whole new sheaf of bills. I guess she saw a chiropractor."

"Probably a subluxation specialist," I said, using the only chiropractic term I'd ever heard.

She punched some holes in the invoice and pronged it in the file. "Actually, they were here about Bibianna. That's why I wanted them to talk to you. I guess ICPI got wind she'd moved up here. She ran a couple of scams in Santa Monica last year and they were hoping to track her down."

"Well, that's nice. Insurance scams?"

"They didn't spell it out, but it almost has to be insurance-related, don't you think?"

I considered the situation briefly, wondering why an ICPI employee would "show the ropes" to someone working for another agency. It's not as though the ICPI and the Department of Insurance don't cooperate, but the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute isn't a law enforcement agency. And why would investigators make the trip up here in the first place? Why not put a call through to CF instead of driving the hour and a half? It just made no sense. Unless they lied. "Did you give them this address?" I asked, indicating the penciled note.

"I didn't give ' em anything. That's why I was so surprised when you said they'd left. All I did was confirm we were checking on a claim here. Why?"

"They could have spotted this while you were off at the water cooler. All they had to do was rifle the stack of files on your desk."

"Oh, come on. You don't think they'd really do that."

"Who knows? Let's just hope they were legitimate."

She put her hand on her chest like she was about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. "Oh, Lord. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you know how it is. You can hand out a business card that says anything. I've done it myself."

Mary seemed affronted, suddenly shifting from anxiety into action mode. "Give me that," she said. She snatched the woman's business card and laid it on the desk with a snapping sound. I watched her pick up the phone and punch in the telephone number with its 213 area code. "I'm going to kill myself if she isn't who she said she was." She listened for a moment and then her expression changed. She held up the receiver, which was emitting a sound like a garbage disposal grinding up a live duck.

"Maybe you dialed it wrong," I said helpfully.

"God, I can't believe I'd fall for something so obvious, but it never occurred to me to question her identity. How could I be so dumb?"

"Well, you don't have to be so hard on yourself. After years in the business, I can still be conned. It's human nature to trust, especially if you're honest to begin with. Not that I'm that honest, but you know what I mean."

"What do you think they were up to?"

"Beats me," I said. "Obviously, they knew Bibianna and they were aware of her inclination to cheat. The real question is, how'd they get to us? There must be a hundred insurance agencies in Santa Teresa. Why CF?"

"This is terrible. I'm just sick. What could they want with her?" Mary's cheeks had turned a bright, wholesome pink.

"Probably nothing pleasant or they would have played it straight."

"What should we do?"

"I don't see what we can do until we know what's going on. Why don't you track down the current phone number for ICPI and ask if they're investigating her." I held the note up. "In the meantime, I'll try to catch up with her and we'll fake it out from there."

I WENT HOME and stripped off the uniform. I transferred the fake ID from the pocket of my uniform pants to my blue jeans, which I pulled on with a navy turtleneck. I slipped into gym stocks and tenny bops and headed back to Bibianna's.

I hoped Mary Bellflower's naivete hadn't put Ms. Diaz at risk. There were still no cars in the drive and no sign of the couple I'd seen at the CF offices. Had they already looked up the address and hightailed it over here? They had maybe thirty minutes on me, so it was always possible that they were in the cottage right now or had been and gone. If they'd actually been quick enough to nick off her address. A few cars passed on the street, but no familiar faces peered out. For the second time that day, I left my car, locked, on the street and moved down Bibianna's driveway. It was now four thirty-five, and I could see lights on in the cottage. As I approached, I caught a tantalizing whiff of onions and garlic being sauteed in olive oil. I climbed the wide wooden steps. From inside, this time, I could hear the jaunty theme song of a television sitcom, probably a cable station doing reruns.

I knocked on the front door, which was opened moments later by a Hispanic woman of perhaps twenty-five. She was barefoot, dressed in a red satin teddy with a short red satin robe pulled over it and tied at the waist. She was slim – nay, petite – with flawless olive skin and big dark eyes in a heart-shaped face. She had two tortoiseshell hairpins clamped in her teeth as if I'd caught her in the midst of redoing her hair. Dark hair trailed halfway down her back like a shawl, a few silken strands spilling across her right shoulder. As I watched, she gathered the length of it and made a complicated knot, which she secured with the two hairpins. "Yes?"

My true inclination was to stand on tiptoe so I could peer over her shoulder at the space beyond. The interior of the cottage was essentially one big room, divided into living areas by the use of brightly dyed cloth panels that swayed with the eddy of moving air from the open door. A vibrant green panel separated the living room from the kitchen, an electric blue shielded most of a brass bed frame from view. The windows were draped in the bolt ends of purple cotton twisted across brass hooks. I'd seen the same idea in a women's magazine in the dentist's office but had never seen it used to such effect. The furniture was a mismatched collection of wicker and castoffs, swathes of navy-and-purple cotton distinguishing the worn arms, lending continuity to the look of the place. The effect was striking and seemed to suggest boldness and confidence.

I realized, belatedly, that I hadn't come up with a cover story. Happily, I'm an old hand at lying, and I could feel one bubble up. "Sorry to disturb you," I said. "I'm, uhm, looking for an apartment in the area and someone said you might be giving notice."

Her look was cautious and her tone was blunt. "Who said?"

"Gee, I don't remember. A neighbor, I guess. I've been knocking on doors for days, it feels like."

"Why you want to live around here? It's depressing."

"It's close to where I work," I said, praying she wouldn't ask where that was. I'd probably pretend to be a waitress, but I couldn't, for the life of me, remember any restaurants close by.

She stared at me. "Actually, I'm hoping to move in a couple of weeks," she said. "I got some money coming in that I should hear about pretty soon."

"That's great. Do you mind if I keep in touch?"

She pulled her mouth down in a shrug. "Sure. I'd let you see the place, but it's kind of a mess. It's only one room, but it's fine if you're by yourself. You got furniture?"

"Well, some."

"The landlord's pretty good about stuff like that. Most of this I'll leave when I move out. You'd need a bed."

"I got that," I said. "You have a pen I could use? I'll make a note of your name and number and maybe give you a call in a couple of weeks."

"Just a minute," she said. She closed the door, returning moments later with a scrap of paper and a pen. I looked at her expectantly.

She tilted her head so she could watch me write. "Diaz. Bibianna with two n's."

"Thanks."

I left Bibianna and went home, where I finally had a moment to examine the letter I'd stolen from Bibianna's mailbox. I made a note of the name and address of the recipient, a Gina Diaz in Culver City, California. Bibianna's mother or a sister, by my guess. From my desk drawer, I pulled out an aerosol can of some chemical concoction that turns opaque paper translucent for thirty to sixty seconds. Spray it on an envelope and you can read what's inside without going to the trouble of steaming it open. Clearly marked on the can, of course, is a stiffly worded warning, reminding the user that tampering with written communications while in United States Postal Service channels is punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $2,000 fine. God, I should really open up a little savings account in case I get caught doing stuff like this.

I depressed the nozzle and dampened the surface of the envelope with a fine mist, then held it up to the light. The note said: "Hi, Ma. I'm fine so far. $$ should come threw any time. Please don't let Raymond know you've heard from me. Love, B."

I watched the envelope become opaque again without any visible mark, discoloration, or odor. I took it out to the street and tucked it in my mailbox for tomorrow's pickup. I returned to my apartment and put a quick call through to Mary Bellflower. I caught her just as she was getting ready to close up her desk for the day. "Have you heard anything from ICPI?"

"Not really. I'm still waiting for a call back."

"Keep me posted," I said.

"Right."

I put on a pot of coffee and went up the spiral stairs to the loft. I changed clothes again, this time pulling on a black tank top, tight ankle-high black pants, short white socks with an edging of lace, and scuffed low-heeled black pumps. I ratted my hair, securing one hunk of it in a rubber band so that it stuck straight up like a little hair spout. I applied (inexpertly, I'll admit) eyeliner, mascara, blushers, and gaudy red lipstick, then clipped on big dangle earrings replete with red stones that no one in their right mind would mistake for rubies. Then I sprayed my entire upper body with cheap scent. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. I half turned away from the mirror and looked back, pulled one shoulder up, and pursed my lips. What a vamp… what a tramp! I didn't know I had it in me.

I clomped down my spiral stairs to the kitchenette and made myself an olive-pimento cheese sandwich, which I packed in a metal lunch box with an apple, some graham crackers, a Thermos of hot coffee, and a Dick Francis paperback. I grabbed my black leather jacket, tucked the fake "Hannah Moore" ID in my pants pocket, and snagged my car keys. I drove back over to Bibianna's neighborhood and parked a few doors away. I got out of the car and hiked down to the minimarket to use the pay phone. The meat counter was locked up and the guy was stocking shelves. I didn't see "Mom."

I dropped in two dimes and dialed Bibianna's number. When she answered after two rings, I held my nose and asked for Mame. I sounded like a cold sufferer on a TV commercial for an antihistamine.

"Who?"

"Mame?"

"You got a wrong number."

"Sorry," I said. I returned to my car and settled in.

From my position, I could see the mouth of the driveway, much of the big brown house, and a portion of the yard, but nothing of Bibianna's cottage, which was located in the rear. My assumption was that if she left the premises, she'd surface somewhere in front and I could follow by car or on foot, whichever seemed more appropriate. I had no idea if she intended to go out or where she might go if she did, but she struck me as the restless type, and I was hoping she'd find some reason to stir, even if her purpose was no more important than a run to the corner market for a six-pack. I turned on the car radio just in time for the five-thirty news. The talk of rain was beginning to sound like something more than mere rumor. I stuck my head out the car window and stared upward. A ceiling of darkening clouds was creating the illusion of sudden twilight. The wind was picking up, blowing a dried palm frond along the street. Secretly I wished I could go back to my place and lock myself in for the night instead of spying on Bibianna Diaz. I switched from station to station, listening to a rotating selection of popular songs that all seemed to sound the same. I kept one eye on the driveway and one on my book, but the dark came so quickly I wasn't able to read much. The streetlights popped on and I could see that the tree leaves had taken on a patent-leather sheen, a deep, glossy green that seemed to shimmer in the darkness. At suppertime, the neighborhood began to stir with life, people coming home from work, houselights coming on.

A single-car surveillance is usually considered the least productive technique in any private investigator's little bag of tricks. In order to be discreet, you have to keep so much distance between yourself and the subject that visual contact is tough to maintain without being "made." Then, too, if Bibianna was picked up by car, I had a fifty-fifty chance of being headed in the right direction. If I'd guessed wrong, I was sunk. A sudden U-turn in a residential neighborhood is a conspicuous move and one almost guaranteed to alert the driver of the car you're following. With a two-car surveillance you can at least trade off positions and the subject is less likely to become suspicious. Unfortunately, I hadn't been authorized to hire outside help on this. For all I knew, Gordon Titus had fired me in absentia. It certainly seemed like the wrong time to ask for a cash advance. I was operating on the cheap, trying to establish a relationship with the woman so I could find out what she was up to. A well-documented claim file is fundamental to successful prosecution under "theft by deception" statutes. Before handing over the files to the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute, CF would want to provide proof of a material false representation, proof of intent to defraud, evidence that the claims adjuster relied upon representations by the claimant in paying the claim, and evidence of payment. If Bibianna was scamming Aetna and Allstate along with California Fidelity, it would probably mean hiring a handwriting expert to establish the links, though there might well be matching fingerprints on all the claim forms she'd sent. With fraud, as with most crimes, the perpetrator's job was a lot easier than ours.

At seven twenty-five, to relieve the boredom, I ate my sandwich and two graham crackers. It was now fully dark, and a pale mist filled the air, a rain so fine that it scarcely dampened the pavement. I turned the engine on twice, letting it ran for brief periods until the car warmed up. A pizza was delivered to a nearby apartment complex. The passing scent of pepperoni and melted mozzarella nearly brought tears to my eyes. An old lady walked by in a robe and a shawl with her cocker spaniel on a leash. Cars passed, moving in both directions, but none slowed down and there was no sign of Bibianna. By nine, I found myself slouched down on my spine, knees propped up against the steering wheel, trying to keep from nodding off. The couple from the CF offices had never made an appearance and I was about to write them off. Either they had no idea where Bibianna Diaz now lived or they had no compelling interest in her in the first place. I couldn't imagine why they'd gone to the trouble of tracking her down if they didn't mean to pursue the point. Maybe something had scared them off. Idly, I wondered if they were in a parked car nearby, waiting for her themselves.

At nine forty-five, quite suddenly, Bibianna appeared in the driveway. She was wearing red again, a body-hugging chemise that hit her midthigh. Dark hose and red spike heels. For someone so petite, her legs looked incredibly long and shapely, giving an impression of height when she was probably barely five feet one. She had one hand tucked in the pocket of a cracked brown leather bomber jacket that she'd left unzipped. With the other hand, she held a section of newspaper above her head, shielding her hair from the drizzle. She had her face turned in my direction, scanning the street, but she didn't seem to register the fact that she was being observed. Five minutes later, a Yellow Cab passed and came to a stop in front of her. She got in. I started my VW while she slammed the taxi door and settled herself in the backseat. I eased out into the street, flipping my headlights on as the taxi pulled away, hoping my appearance behind it would seem part of the natural flow of traffic in the area.

We traveled sedately on surface streets, heading toward Cabana Boulevard, the wide avenue that parallels the beach. This was my turf and I had to imagine she was heading toward the big restaurant/bar out on the wharf, or perhaps to one of the bawdy bars at the lower end of State Street. It turned out to be the latter. The cab slowed in front of a lowlife bar called the Meat Locker. The ABC had shut the place down twice in the past for serving alcohol to minors, and the previous owner had consequently lost his liquor license. The bar had been sold and was open now under new management. I drove on past. Through my rearview mirror, I watched as Bibianna emerged from the cab, paid the driver, and headed toward the entrance. I hung a left, drove around the block, and returned to the parking lot, where I squeezed the VW into a quasi-legal parking spot against the wall. As I locked the car, ducking my head against the sprinkle of rain, I could feel the pavement vibrate with the music from the bar. I took my last breath of fresh air and walked into the place.

Just inside the door, I paid the five-dollar cover charge and had the back of my hand stamped in purple with a USD A designation of "choice." The Meat Locker looked like it had been designed originally for industrial purposes and converted to commercial use without much concession to aesthetics. The room was cavernous and drab, with a concrete floor and metal beams showing high up in the shadowy reaches of the ceiling. A nineteen-foot bar ran along the wall to the right, packed three deep with guys whose faces looked like they belonged on the post office wall. The place smelled of beer and cigarette smoke, corn tortillas fried in lard, with an occasional whiff of dope wafting through the side door from the alleyway. All the house-lights were blue. There was a live band, five guys who looked like junior high school thugs and sounded like they should still be practicing in someone's garage. The music was a raunchy blend of thumping bass, pulsing synthesizers, relentlessly repeated chords, and lyrics that were vile if you managed to discern the words above the piercing electronic howls. The dance floor was a portable wooden pallet, maybe twenty feet on a side, jammed with bouncing bodies, faces lathered in sweat. This was where the C – singles came to hunt. There were no yuppies, no preppies, no slumming execs, no middle-class, white-bread college types. This was a hard-core pickup place for bikers and hamburger hookers, who'd screw anyone for a meal. Bar fights and knifings were taken as a matter of course, uniformed beat cops strolling through so often they were assumed to be customers. The noise level was intolerable, punctuated by an intermittent bam! and bursts of raucous laughter. The bar was famous for a drink called a "slammer": tequila and 7-Up in an old-fashioned glass. When the drink was served, a cloth napkin was placed across the mouth of the glass, which was then slammed down on a wooden board the waitress carried. The blow forced the tequila and 7-Up together in a high-test infusion, which the patron was expected to toss down in one gulp. Usually the limit was two slammers per customer. After two, most women had to be helped, toes dragging, to the car. After three, men had the urge to break wooden chairs or bash a hand through glass.