I rang the bell and waited, feeling edgy without quite knowing why. The neighborhood dogs had grown quiet, and all I could hear now was a modest wind rustling the leaves of palm and eucalyptus trees that rose in silhouette against the half-moon sky. When I rang the bell again, I heard a small dog just inside the door, yipping like a strangled soprano. I tried the doorknob, found the door unlocked, pushed it slightly open.
“Charlotte?”
The dog was white with golden-brown patches and looked freshly shampooed and clipped, one of those fluffy little pedigreed types with tiny teeth and a serious Napoleon complex. It kept up its shrill yip and made darting kamikaze attacks at my ankles as I stepped in, shutting the door behind me.
I called out Charlotte’s name again but got no response.
The living room was as modern and tidy as the exterior of the house, with spotless eggshell sofas arranged to face floor-to-ceiling windows that looked west across the canyon. The kitchen was to my left, expansive and gleaming, seeming more like a display kitchen in a home show than a place where someone actually cooked.
I started down a short hallway to my right, assuming the bedrooms to be in that direction. The dog ran ahead, dashing into the first open door on the left. When I got there and looked in, the animal’s high-pitched bark had given way to a soft whimper.
The little dog was up on the bed, hunched down with worried, buggy eyes, nuzzling Charlotte Preston’s lifeless body.
I’d never been terribly fond of nervous little dogs with haircuts more expensive than my own, but I didn’t want this one disturbing any more evidence on the bed. So I stroked its fluffy head until it stopped whimpering, then lifted it gently away from Charlotte Preston’s stiffening body.
Her eyes were open wide, looking shocked, and her skin had a bluish tint, like that of a panicked actress bathed in a garish stage light after forgetting her next line. A hypodermic needle protruded from a vein in the joint of her left arm, and a small vial from which the syringe had presumably been filled lay next to her on the bed. While I clutched the wriggling dog to my chest, I felt for a pulse in Charlotte’s neck, then in her right wrist, but her heart was no longer pumping. The once-pretty face was frozen in a hideous grimace, as if her last moments had been agonized or filled with terror. Yet except for a few wrinkles where the dog had been, the coverlet on the bed was as smooth as a well-told lie. Another odd thing: traces of fine, white sand on one side of the body, barely visible, which someone had apparently missed while tidying up after the hypo had done its job.
I kept the dog clutched in the crook of one arm, and used a telephone on the nightstand to punch the buttons for 911. When the dispatcher came on, I informed her that I’d discovered a homicide, answered a few of her questions, and told her I’d wait out front for the cops to arrive. After that, I called Alexandra Templeton at home, where she was reading the final chapter of the latest Walter Mosley mystery, determined to finish it before turning in at midnight.
She told me as much, but I suggested she might want to put the book aside and join me at Charlotte Preston’s house in Nichols Canyon.
“Now?”
“If you want to get here before the coroner’s van arrives.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Charlotte, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, dear.”
“You two never actually met, did you?”
“Just that one conversation by phone, when she reached me at the
Times.
I guess she found you, offered you the book deal.”
“Just in time to expire.”
I could hear Templeton flipping open her reporter’s notebook while we talked.
“How did it happen?”
“Lethal injection, from all appearances.”
“Suicide?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What makes you say that?”
“We can talk when you get here. You like cute little dogs?”
“Usually.”
“Good. Get here soon.”
I gave her the address and hung up. Then I walked slowly about the room and the rest of the house, careful about where I stepped and what I touched. The remainder of the place was as impeccably maintained as the living room and kitchen, not a single item out of place. I saw no signs of a break-in or violence, although I did notice drawers in three of the rooms that had not been completely shut, and two closet doors that were also slightly ajar, which seemed uncharacteristic of both the house and Charlotte Preston herself. I came upon more traces of the crystalline sand on the hardwood floor near the open drawers and closets, left in a distinct crescent pattern not much wider than a slice of watermelon. It was the kind of sand you find on a lovely tropical island or maybe an exclusive beach resort but not up in dusty Nichols Canyon, where almost every rainy season turned the hills to dark mud thicker than gruel.
The last room I visited was the den, where personal photographs were framed and lined up on a shelf like good little soldiers ordered to put on a display of unquestioned unity. Most of the pictures showed Charlotte growing up from babyhood, often with her father cuddling her or at her side, but without her mother anywhere in sight. There were also a baker’s dozen of Rod Preston alone, mostly professional head shots and publicity stills that turned the shelf into something of a Hollywood shrine. Preston was instantly recognizable from his early years as a lean and chiseled matinee idol, then less so as he grew beefy in middle age, when the slack skin of his neck gave away the skillful cosmetic salvage jobs that had minimized the damage above. Only one other face was on display in Charlotte’s den, set apart from the father-daughter gallery on a side table: a handsome guy pushing fifty, with dusky skin, wide brown eyes, dark hair going gray at the tips, a thick, attractive mustache, and a warm smile that suggested confidence and easy charm. He looked vaguely Hispanic, not at all like family, and maybe the kind of solid, older man a daddy’s girl like Charlotte could fall for pretty hard.
A minute later, I stood out front, pulling my collar up against the chill of a gusting wind, while a patrol car came racing up the canyon code two, lights but no siren. It slowed as I raised my hand, while the little dog squirmed under my other arm. I told the two cops where the body was, mentioned the patterns of sand on the floor they might want to step around, and let them take it from there. Before they went in, I tried to foist Charlotte’s dog on them, but they asked me to hang on to it awhile, since I had to stick around anyway for questioning. As they entered the house, the dog began to get a little crazy, wanting to follow them in. I opened the trunk of the Mustang, fluffed an old blanket in the tire well, set the dog on it for the time being, and securely shut the lid. Given the beat-up condition of the Mustang, ventilation was not a worry, and I didn’t plan to leave the poor dog in there for long.
Templeton arrived maybe half an hour later, zipping up the canyon in her new Porsche Cabriolet, an early thirtieth birthday gift from her proud papa, who made a habit of buying his pampered daughter pricey new wheels every other year. She’d made good time from her condo near the beach in Santa Monica, and when she stepped from the flashy silver Porsche, I was struck by how well put together she looked. After my call, she couldn’t have taken more than a minute or two to dress, but still managed to look stunning, a tall, leggy black woman just shy of thirty who could have been a runway supermodel if becoming the city’s best investigative reporter hadn’t been her priority.
By the time she crossed the road, the patrol officers had finished stringing yellow barricade tape around the front of the house and called for an ident team from downtown. I introduced them to Templeton, explaining that she’d recently joined the
Los Angeles Times
as a police reporter after three years at the now-defunct
Los Angeles Sun.
They seemed altogether unimpressed, and told her that any questions she might have would have to wait for the detectives.
When they’d moved on, I asked her if she’d alerted the
Times
city desk to Charlotte’s passing.
She said she had.
“The night editor told me it was too late to get a news brief into the Sunday paper. Said it sounded like a routine overdose or suicide.”
“She’s Rod Preston’s daughter. That must count for something.”
“Not enough for a replate, apparently.”
Templeton told me the
Times’s
night man had instructed her to stay at the scene, collect what information she could, then make some follow-up calls the next afternoon and file a story for the Monday morning edition, unless she wanted to turn the whole thing over to another staffer scheduled to work the Sunday desk. Not surprisingly, Templeton had kept the assignment for herself, willing to put some time in on her day off. She was no longer a big frog at the smaller
Sun,
with Harry Brofsky as her supportive boss, but a tadpole hoping to make a splash at the mighty
L.A. Times.
Putting in an extra day without pay on a late-breaking story couldn’t help but score some points at the biggest newspaper west of New York City, especially with a notable Hollywood name like Rod Preston in the mix.
Templeton and I discussed all this while we stood on the walkway that ran through Charlotte Preston’s rock and cactus garden and waited for the gold shields from downtown to show up. When my turn came to talk, I filled Templeton in on the book deal Charlotte and I had struck and that she had later backed out of, sounding shaken as she called from Montecito. I wondered aloud if I was legally entitled to keep the money Charlotte had given me, now that she was suddenly out of the picture.
Templeton’s forehead creased with speculation.
“You have a signed contract. When Charlotte canceled the deal, she told you the money was yours to keep. I’m not a lawyer, but I’d say it’s probably yours.”
“Whoopee for me, then.”
I pulled my jacket tighter around me, shoved my hands deep in my pockets, listened to the wind cutting through the canyon. The dark clouds that had massed throughout the day had finally parted enough to let the moon peek through, and it cast a lovely, eerie light on the trembling trees.
Templeton craned her head, looking for my eyes.
“You OK? You seem a little distant.”
“Tired is all.”
“I’ve seen you looking better.”
“It’s been a long day.”
Several neighbors had come out of their houses to see what the commotion was all about, and one of the beat cops started taking names of possible witnesses.
Templeton abandoned the more personal issue of my health and started playing reporter again. “When you called, you said you didn’t think Charlotte took her own life.”
“There’s a needle and syringe sticking out of her left arm. When Charlotte signed our contract, she did it with her left hand. Drank her coffee that way too.”
“She might have been ambidextrous.”
“A possibility, I guess. The bedspread had been smoothed out, but there were traces of fine, white sand next to the body.”
“You think someone was with her when she died.”
“Another possibility.”
I mentioned the partially open drawers and closet doors that looked like they might have been shut in haste, suggesting a hurried search of the house. Also, more of the sand sprinkled nearby in a distinct arching pattern.
“Charlotte was a fastidious housekeeper, from all appearances.”
“Maybe that wasn’t on her mind when she decided to end it all.”
“Has something happened to Miss Preston?”
The intruding voice belonged to a short, wizened man who stood nearby in flannel pajamas and a plaid wool bathrobe, with a knitted afghan over his shoulders. When we looked over, he shuffled closer in his leather slippers, pushing his wire-rimmed spectacles higher on his prominent nose. He told us his name was Sol Shapiro and that he lived just up and across the road. Templeton gave him the bad news.
“I’m afraid Charlotte’s dead, Mr. Shapiro.”
His rheumy eyes opened wider behind his spectacles.
“Miss Preston—
dead?
”
His voice was raspy and dry, barely more than a whisper.
“I’m afraid so.”
He put a mottled hand to his wrinkled face.
“Oh, my goodness. Was it a burglary? Did someone—?”
“I guess that’s up to the detectives and the coroner to decide.”
“She was so young, such a sweet girl.”
“Did you notice anyone coming or going this evening, Mr. Shapiro?”
He stared at Templeton a moment, searching back.
“As a matter of fact, I did. Two visitors, just before dark. Seven, seven thirty, I believe it was. I was reading, and I heard dogs barking in the canyon. My own dog started in, so I stepped out on my porch to take a look.”
Templeton had her notebook open, her pen poised.
“What did you see?”
“Just these two people. As I said, it was almost dark. I had my reading glasses on. At my age…”
He raised his small hands apologetically.
“Tell me whatever you can, Mr. Shapiro.”
He shook his head and raised his shoulders in a shrug as he tried to remember.
“A man and a woman, though I couldn’t tell you how old. Both were white, I believe. I do recall that she had long, dark hair and was slightly taller than the man.”
“Did you see what they were wearing?”
“Both had on long coats against the cold. That’s all I noticed—long, dark coats.”
“What exactly did they do?”
“Went up to the door. Rang the bell or knocked, I guess. Then the woman reached out and touched the man’s face. She drew him toward her and they kissed—quite passionately, as a point of fact. Very romantic, that pair, although I sensed more urgency in the woman than the man.”
“You’re an observant person.”
Shapiro looked down at his leather slippers.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have been spying like that.”
He glanced up shyly.
“We try to keep an eye out for one another up here. It being somewhat isolated and all.”
“Anything else, Mr. Shapiro?”
“No, just two indistinct figures, as I said, waiting for Charlotte to open the door. Stealing a kiss together.”
“Did you see a car?”
“I didn’t think to look.”
“Charlotte invited them in?”
“Without hesitation, as if she was expecting them. She closed the door behind them, and after that, the dogs got quiet. I went back inside to my reading, then to bed. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”