“She just sat there, no topical, not moving a muscle. Like a dog on tranqs. I’ve seen it before. I see all kinds of things. Psychology, you know?”
“Describe the guy with her.”
He did.
Everything changed.
Another shift of a mad prism, a new paradigm.
I dialed Milo’s mobile frantically. Voice mail; same for his desk phone. I tried the landline at his house, got Rick’s grave rendition:
If this is an emergency for Dr. Silverman … if you’re trying to reach Detective Sturgis …
“It’s me, call me back, A-sap.” Swinging away from the curb, I sped back to Laurel Canyon. Two blocks in, my cell chirped.
Milo said, “Glad I reached you.”
“You got my message?”
“What message? No, I’ve got one for you, guess who just called? Grant Fellinger. Sounding scared as hell and asking to meet sooner, not later. I’m on my way over right now. Feel free to join the party, maybe he’ll validate parking for both of us.”
Click
.
I caught up with him in the reception area of Grant Fellinger’s law firm. Pocketing his badge as the receptionist said, “This way,” and rose to escort him.
New face at the front desk: a fuzzy-bearded boy-man around five four in place of the pretty young Latina who’d been there the first time. Milo’s long legs outpaced him and after struggling to keep up, Fuzzy said, “I’m just a temp,” and returned to his post.
Like the first time, Fellinger was waiting out in the hallway. The moment he saw us, he ducked into his office.
When we entered he was behind his desk, sitting up straight, trying to look calm and authoritative. Futile attempt; he’d sweated navy splotches all over his pale-blue shirt, his tie hung off center, and patches of his hair had come unslicked.
An empty Old-Fashioned glass sat at his elbow, next to a fifth of Johnnie Blue.
“Thank you for responding quickly. I hope I’m overreacting.”
Milo said, “To what, sir?”
“Merry’s disappearance,” said Fellinger. “Maybe it’s nothing, I hope it is, but this isn’t like her.”
“Merry being—”
“Meredith Santos, our receptionist.”
“Pretty girl—”
“
Gorgeous
girl,” said Fellinger, eyes sailing to the right.
More than professional feelings? Catching himself, he looked directly at us. “By that I mean gorgeous inside as well as out. She’s a real class kid, terrific worker, military vet, never took a sick day. You don’t see that often. I try to reward exemplary employees by taking them to dinner, just did that for Merry.”
“The problem is—”
“She hasn’t shown up for work for three days running and no one can reach her.”
Fellinger kneaded some of the extra flesh beneath his ears. “Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal, Lieutenant, but as I said, you’d have to know Merry. Calls, texts, nothing. It’s just not like her.”
“Does she live alone?”
“No, in Venice,” said Fellinger. “Oh. That was a non sequitur,
wasn’t it? Sorry.” Deep breath. “She lives in a house in Venice with two roommates, girls around her age. Problem is, they’re both traveling, couple of weeks in Europe. This morning we called Merry’s folks in Phoenix. Her parents were getting worried, too, and I’m afraid we did nothing to calm them down.”
“Has anyone been by her apartment?”
Fellinger blushed. “I did. On the way home from work, last night. I knocked, rang, no answer. Looked through her mail slot and saw mail on the floor.”
A fresh coat of sweat glazed his forehead. “You probably think I’m overreacting. But here’s the thing—and this is going to sound strange, particularly in view of what happened to Ursula—as if we’re some sort of … we’re just a boring law firm, nothing out of the ordinary occurs here … I’m sure this is irrelevant but the timing … maybe I shouldn’t even open up this Pandora’s box, if I’m wrong and frankly I hope I am, it’ll turn out irrelevant. Because this person’s already unhappy with the firm and the last thing we need is complications.”
“Which person is that, sir?”
Fellinger pinged his empty glass with a fingernail. Long, deep breath. “Recently, we let an employee go. A couple of days before Merry disappeared. I’m sure there’s no link, but … Merry had problems with him. Other people, as well.”
Milo said, “Other women?”
Fellinger poured himself scotch, tossed it back. “Several female employees were made to feel uncomfortable, so we were forced to take action. He didn’t take well to being fired, not well at all. In fact, he showed me a different side of himself. Nasty. We confronted him and the day he left I noticed him passing Merry’s desk and giving her a look. I’d have to call it rage. Cold rage. I forgot about it but then Merry didn’t show up and by the third day—” A second quick snort. He burped. Grimaced.
“Lieutenant, here’s where it’s really going to get dodgy, but I might as well …”
Rolling the glass between his hands. “Not only did I get to thinking about Merry, I also began wondering about Ursula. Because this person
was
with Ursula shortly before she died. Walked her to the elevator, for all I know he rode down with her. By itself that means nothing, if he hadn’t showed me that other side of himself, I’d never have given it a second thought. But the look he gave Merry plus all the other complaints. And now no one can find Merry—I just don’t
know
.”
I said, “What was Jens Williams accused of specifically?”
Milo’s head whipped toward me.
Fellinger blinked. “You already had him on your radar? Oh, God.”
Still studying me, Milo said, “How about we start at the beginning, Mr. Fellinger?”
“The beginning was nine months ago when we hired Jens. My previous assistant left to have a baby and I happened to be talking to a colleague and she said she had a cousin who’d fit the bill perfectly.”
“Which colleague was that?”
“Another attorney in the building,” said Fellinger. “We’ve worked together, there was a trust level and this cousin sounded ideal. Yale graduate, had worked as a playwright, smart, industrious. He interviewed fine. A bit on the wimpy side but that’s okay, I don’t need attitude. I even paid him a bit more than I might normally because of the Ivy League thing.”
“Give me the name of Williams’s cousin, Mr. Fellinger.”
“She needs to be involved? You’re sure it’s relevant?”
“I’m not sure of anything.”
“All right … her name is Flora Sullivan but I can’t believe she’d have anything to do with something … unsavory.”
Tall, lanky woman. Bird-like, myopic. Same body type as Jens Williams. A pair of storks.
Once you knew, the family resemblance was obvious.
I said, “Williams ended up being a disappointment.”
Grant Fellinger said, “He was no great shakes as an assistant, but adequate. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that other attorneys in
the firm began to take me aside. Their staffers had started complaining about Jens. Had been feeling uneasy for a while but no one came forward because no one knew it was more than an individual issue. But once women began talking to each other, a pattern arose. Not something you could really sink your teeth into, no inappropriate touching, not even remarks. He’d just begun to bother female employees by looking at them. By being there when he didn’t need to be.”
I said, “Showing up and creeping them out.”
“Exactly. The complainants—there were seven of them, all younger women—would find him staring at them. The adjectives they used included lascivious, sly, weird, spooky, stalky. Even rapey, which is a new one on me. In any event, you get the picture. So how do you deal with something so ambiguous? There were certainly no legal grounds but I met with the partners and we agreed we’d have to do something.”
He looked back at the bar. “Here’s where it gets sensitive. I absolutely need you to be discreet.”
We waited.
Fellinger said, “Well … what we decided was that we’d try to find something else about Jens that was objectionable and use that to get him out. And he made it easy because his work had begun to suffer. Tardiness, lack of focus, downright apathetic toward the end. I began wondering about some sort of emotional issue. Particularly in view of the complaints.”
I said, “Inhibitions breaking down.”
“Here’s an example,” said Fellinger. “One of the partners has a crackerjack assistant, she’s been with him for years. One day she exited the ladies’ room and found Jens right outside the door. Lurking, as she called it. He didn’t move when she saw him, just stayed there. Smirking. We’re not talking the main lav which is out in the open, men’s and women’s side by side. This was a smaller unisex bathroom in the storage room. She was searching for files but Jens wasn’t. I know because I didn’t assign him to look for anything.”
Milo said, “See what you mean. So the firm looked for dirt on him.”
Fellinger frowned. “I’d prefer to call it constructive research. I assumed the primary responsibility because I’d hired him. I went over his résumé with a fine-tooth comb. Which, I’m embarrassed to say, I
didn’t
do the first time. He was Flora’s cousin and she gave him high accolades. Turns out he fooled everyone
including
Flora. At first when I told her we’d have to let him go, she wasn’t pleased, we actually had words. But then when she learned the truth, she understood. And called me later that day to apologize, turns out he’s only her third cousin, she didn’t know him that well.”
Tense chat in the parking garage.
Milo said, “What truth did she learn?”
Fellinger threw up his hands. “He lied about everything. He did attend Yale, but only for a semester, he flunked out. Playwriting was total b.s. No productions, no credits, nor did he work for any of the firms he listed.”
“What kind of firms?”
“A theatrical publisher, ad agencies. Even the law firm in New York where he’d claimed to work knew him as a client. They defended him in a battery case.”
Milo said, “A defendant who uses it for his bio. That’s pretty nervy.”
“I guess if we’d done due diligence it would’ve ended before it began. But now my main concern is Merry Santos.”
“And maybe Ursula Corey.”
“Oh, Jesus, I hope not.”
I said, “Given all his lies about employment, any idea how he’s supported himself?”
“The only bona fide job he listed,” said Fellinger, “the only one I could confirm, was—get this—cooking. He worked as a chef in a New York restaurant. Not a full chef, some sort of assistant. I talked to the manager but he wasn’t helpful beyond ‘personal issues.’ But I can guess.”
Another toss of hands. “Idiot couldn’t even hold on to a kitchen job!”
We remained in Fellinger’s office as Milo worked his phone. John Jensen Williams’s phone account had been disconnected weeks ago.
I thought: disposables. His and hers.
Maybe his his and hers, if you factored in Richard Corey, a man who’d used untraceables for years.
The home address Williams had given the law firm traced to a body shop in East Hollywood. The proprietor, one Armand Hagopian, had never heard of Williams nor had he ever worked on the six-year-old Ford van Williams had registered in Connecticut.
Learning all that turned Grant Fellinger a sickly shade of gray. “How the hell did we pay him?”
Milo said, “That was going to be my next question.”
A race-walk through the suite brought us to the desk of a woman in her sixties named Vivian who handled purchasing for the firm and doubled as the bursar. She said, “Oh, him. He picked up his check in person. Like clockwork.”
Fellinger said, “You didn’t find that odd, Viv?”
“I found
him
odd, Mr. F.”
I said, “How so?”
“I don’t know, just a little … removed? Like he was in another world? I didn’t mind the check, though. Saved us postage and an envelope, save some trees, huh, Mr. F.?”
Back in Fellinger’s office, the three of us remained standing. Fellinger kept eyeing the booze, grew fidgety, laced his hands together as if imposing external restraint.
I said, “How exactly did Williams react when you fired him?”
“At first he said nothing. Stared at me—glared at me. I kept waiting for him to say something but he didn’t so I asked him if he had anything to offer. He didn’t even shake his head, just kept glaring, like he was trying to bore into my brain with his eyes. I’ve been to court and seen enough mind-games, it didn’t bother me. But objectively, it
was
creepy. I really understood what our gals had been going through.”
“He had a way of being intrusive without actually doing anything.”
“Yes. But let me reiterate: This was a totally different person from the one I hired.”
Milo said, “So he just glared. That was it?”
“No,” said Fellinger. “That changed when I began walking away and he said, ‘Just deserts.’ Which I took as a threat so I faced him and gave him a bit of stink-eye and he slinked off.”
“Just deserts,” I said. “A chef using a food analogy.” Aiming that at Milo, not Fellinger.
Fellinger said, “Not even a full chef, he’s obviously a loser.”
Milo said, “How, specifically, did Meredith Santos say Williams bothered her?”
“Same as the others. Hanging around—she called it an incursion into her personal space. And one time she also found him loitering outside the bathroom. But the main head, so a men’s room next to a
women’s wasn’t overtly weird. What really bothers me about Merry is she was one of the last to complain about Jens.”
I said, “Engaging him at his angriest.”
Nod. “And now he’s gone and no one can find her.”
He turned to Milo. “Please. Do your utmost. If something happened to Merry, I’d never get over it. She wasn’t on my personal staff, she worked for the entire firm, but we were—I suppose she considered me more available than the other partners. More prone to offering positive feedback. And Jens would know that, so if he’s trying to get to me—I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Any special perks for Ms. Santos beyond merit dinners?” said Milo.