Heartbreak Hotel Read online

  “It was different.”

  “After you left, I did a little cybering. Did you know that a third of centenarians live independently? Superior protoplasm, I guess.”

  I poured myself coffee, offered her some, but she said, “No, thanks, there’s enough caffeine in me to go rock-climbing blindfolded.”

  She portioned out the last bit of canine cuisine and sat down across from me. “I asked about fun because you looked kind of chipper when you came in.”

  I smiled and shrugged.

  She ran a finger over her lip. “No more nosy-girl. But anything that lifts your spirits is okay with me.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  The next day’s morning call ended at nine thirty-five. At five to ten, I pulled into the Aventura parking lot. A valet sat smoking in a golf cart. Two black-suited drivers chatted near their Town Cars.

  I headed for The Green. The path was blocked by a mass of red.

  Red L.A. Fire Department paramedic truck. A couple of hotel maids and one of the ponytails from the front desk stood watching but no one said a thing as I made my way around the vehicle and hurried up the walkway.

  Nothing at Ocho, Siete, Seis.

  Maybe at Cinco, Cuatro, Tres. I could hope.

  Ninety-nine years old; hope seemed absurd.

  —

  Just outside the steps to the screened porch of Uno stood the young maid who’d served tea yesterday—Refugia. A wadded tissue was pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were wet and her chest heaved.

  When she saw me, she shook her head violently.

  I said, “How long ago?”

  “I found her just now. Brought breakfast at nine like always but her bedroom door was closed and she didn’t answer. I thought maybe she wants more sleep. Then I thought, she’s always up early but I still didn’t want to wake her.”

  She gulped air. “I left and delivered to Cinco and they asked me also for a paper so I went to get that, then I came back here. Nine thirty-four, I looked at my watch, figured I should maybe check. She was in bed, looking so peaceful. But then I couldn’t wake her.”

  A rush of tears. “I know she’s old but there was a lot of life in her. It’s stupid to be surprised. But I was. I called 911.”

  A blue-uniformed paramedic appeared in the bungalow doorway. Tall, muscular, young with a shaved head and narrow eyes. As I approached, he said, “Sir, you can’t go in there.”

  R. Barker on his tag.

  “I’m Dr. Delaware. Ms. Mars and I had an appointment.”

  “You’re her doctor?” he said. “Sorry, too late.”

  “What happened?”

  “She passed, probably in her sleep. She looks pretty elderly.”

  “In three weeks, she’d have been a hundred.”

  “Really?”

  Refugia sniffed and Barker glanced at her. “Too bad, that would’ve been a milestone. Anyway, Doc, we’re finishing up.”

  He descended the porch steps. “I’m heading to the john over in the hotel. My partner’s in there keeping watch till the coroner’s van arrives.”

  After he left, I climbed the stairs to the porch. Heard murmurs and glanced back.

  Just within vision, Barker and Refugia stood on the pathway, talking. Call of the bladder notwithstanding, he looked mellow. She stared up at him, a rapt pupil. He patted her shoulder. She’d stopped crying.

  I went inside.

  —

  A breakfast tray sat on the Chinese table, coffee cup and orange juice glass roofed by paper doilies, plates concealed by silver domes, toast in a rack. The door to the rear of the bungalow was ajar.

  Ten feet of gold plush squelched my footsteps. Floral prints on the wall; shutter closet doors to the right, then an old white-tile bathroom.

  The bedroom door was wedged open. A portable defibrillator and an emergency kit sat on the floor. A second paramedic stood at the foot of a canopy bed, wide enough to block most of the view.

  I said, “I’m Dr. Delaware,” and he swiveled. Tall as Barker, half again as broad, with the moon-face of a well-nourished toddler. His eyes were black. Spiky hair was peroxided yellow. C. Guzman.

  “Hotel called for a doctor? Nothing you can do anymore, sorry.”

  “I had an appointment with the deceased. I’m a psychologist.”

  “Huh,” said Guzman. “She had mental problems?”

  “I met her yesterday, don’t know much about her.”

  “What did you say your name was, sir?”

  “Alex Delaware.”

  “No offense, but would you mind showing me some I.D.?”

  I fished for my wallet, sidestepping so I could see around him. He was a wall of flesh but a few details registered.

  Mahogany bed, oversized for the room, the canopy’s underside pleats of gold silk. Barely enough space for a night table. A black silk duvet was patterned with tiny Asian figures. Black satin pillows created a berm against the headboard.

  Thalia’s body remained out of view.

  I gave Guzman my state license card and my LAPD consultant clip-on. As he read the card, he shifted a bit and I took in more of the room. South wall: floor-to-ceiling books; nothing on the north wall but a plain maple dresser. Atop the dresser, a mirrored tray, an onyx-handled manicure set, lotions, powders, perfumes.

  Big bottle of Chanel No. 5. Corresponding aroma mixed with something sour.

  The TV that Thalia Mars had described proudly was off in a corner, resting on an old Vuitton trunk.

  Guzman switched to the clip-on, shifted his weight again, exposed the center of the room.

  Thalia lay on her back, her body so small it barely tented the duvet. The covers shielded her to mid-torso. Her eyes were shut, her mouth half open. Piano-key-colored hair spread atop a black pillow. Twig-fingers rested atop her abdomen. The digits looked rigid. Maybe rigor; dead for a while.

  No obvious disruption. The amethyst ring was in place and glints of jewelry radiated from the nightstand. I thought I saw some pinkish mottling around her nose but otherwise death’s hue—that green-gray that marks the retreat of cells—had taken ownership of her skin.

  Guzman said, “You’re with the cops? Someone suspects something?”

  “I consult to the cops but mostly I work privately. Thalia was a private patient.”

  “Starting yesterday.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Huh.” Guzman tapped a foot. The floorboards vibrated. “Listen, Doc, I’m not sure what’s going on, so I have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry if that’s offensive but I need to amend my first call-in.”

  “How?”

  “Sir, really, I can’t discuss. I’m calling the cops—real cops, no offense, sir, but procedure has to be followed.”

  I said, “There’s some evidence of homicide?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I said, “From here it looks as if rigor has set in. What about livor mortis? Any pooling below the waist?”

  “Sir!”

  I took out my phone and speed-dialed.

  Milo mastiff-growled, “Sturgis.”

  “Lieutenant, this is Dr. Delaware.”

  “Alex? What’s up?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “You in some kind of fix?”

  “I’m at a death scene, Lieutenant. A patient I came to see turned up unexpectedly deceased. The first responder has some suspicions, let me put him on.”

  I held out the phone. Guzman stared at it.

  I said, “Lieutenant Sturgis is the senior homicide detective at West L.A. We’re cutting out the middleman.”

  Guzman took the phone. “Sir, this is LAFD paramedic Guzman…yes, sir…no, sir, I’m not saying definitely, that’s not my area of expertise, sir, but I couldn’t help notice…yes, I do believe so, sir…would you like me to tell you why…sure, that makes sense…the Aventura Hotel, sir, Sunset and—you do? Great, yessir, I will totally preserve it but are you saying no need to go by procedure…sorry, sir, yessir, right away. Oh, yeah, about Dr. D
elaware…”

  He listened some more, returned the phone and my I.D. His face was an odd mixture of resentment and reverence.

  “Man, you must have something going on with the cops. I’m supposed to tell you everything.”

  —

  Handing me latex gloves, Guzman found another set for himself before motioning me to the right side of the bed. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to disturb anything, Doctor. But…anyway, take a look at this.”

  Two huge fingers tweezed Thalia’s right eyelid open, then its mate. Both sclera were rosy with broken blood vessels.

  I said, “Petechial hemorrhaging.”

  “Didn’t notice it at first, Doc, ’cause when we got here the eyes were just a smidge open and you figure someone her age, in bed, no struggle, why shouldn’t it be natural? But after Rob—my partner—left, like a second before you got here, I was finishing up and I bent down and got closer to her eyes and saw the red and checked.”

  I said, “Asphyxia or strangulation.”

  “No strangulation I can see,” said Guzman. “By that I mean her neck looks clean. But I’m no doctor and someone this old, maybe the body can do things, right? Like something bursting in her brain and the blood goes into the eyes? But then I saw this, check it out.”

  He pointed but I’d already noticed. The redness I’d seen around the nostrils. Up close, discreet rosy spots.

  “Again, Doc, maybe nothing, but combined with the eyes? So, now I’m real curious.”

  I bent closer, breathed in Chanel No. 5 and a rising must. “The bridge of her nose is swollen.”

  “I don’t know what her nose looked like before, Doc.”

  “I do. There’s definite swelling.” I jiggled the cartilage softly. “Doesn’t appear to be broken, more like a pressure mark. Maybe someone squeezing both nostrils.”

  “Oh, boy—okay, there’s this, too.”

  He lifted Thalia’s head with one hand and pointed with the other.

  An oval bruise marked a spot beneath the chin, less than an inch long, purplish.

  I said, “Thumb-sized. Someone forced her mouth and her nose shut.”

  “That would sure do it,” said Guzman. “Poor old thing. If something was done to her, I hope she slept through it.”

  Yesterday’s questions about criminal tendencies clanged in my head. Incorrigibility. Psychopaths.

  Someone specific in mind? Someone she’d let into the bungalow, despite her suspicions?

  Guzman said, “Maybe I’m wrong and there’s some explanation, Doc. I’d sure like to be wrong. What do you think?”

  “I think you did the right thing by paying attention.”

  He shrugged, ripped off his gloves, tossed them onto the floor where they landed like dead moths. Thinking better of it, he retrieved them, crushed them into a ball.

  “This is pathetic, Doc. She reminds me of my great-nana.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  Guzman lifted his gear and the two of us went outside. Rob Barker and Refugia stood in the same place. Now she was talking and he was listening. Both of them looked relaxed.

  Guzman shook his head. “There he goes.”

  I said, “Socializing.”

  “He’s got a really nice girlfriend but he’s a dog.”

  “Time to tell him your suspicions?”

  “Probably should, but what’s the point? All he wants to do is pick up chicks. He thinks I’m a wuss because I don’t cut corners. But he’s a good partner, real good at CPR— Doc, can I ask why you came to see the decea—Ms. Mars?”

  “Sorry, I can’t say.”

  “Oh. Sure. What I’m getting at, was there a serious mental problem? Not that you could explain it with that.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Well,” he said, “we see a whole lot more suicides than homicides but I guess that doesn’t apply here, I shouldn’t run my mouth.” A moment later: “I mean, you couldn’t clamp your own nose and mouth shut long enough, right? It would be like trying to hold your breath, you’d have to give up.”

  “This wasn’t suicide, Chris.”

  “No, of course not. But if she had problems, maybe she knew someone else who was willing to help her.”

  “Assisted suicide.”

  “It’s legal in some places, Doc. Some people don’t think it’s wrong.”

  I said nothing. Guzman was one of those people with a low tolerance for silence. It didn’t take him long to say, “The thing is, the maid—the one Rob’s chatting up—told us she found the door unlocked. So she—Ms. Mars—probably let someone in that she knew. Didn’t seem to me there was any struggle and with all that jewelry in there, those antiques, it sure doesn’t look like robbery. So it makes me wonder, Doc. She was old, needed a shrink, I’m wondering if maybe some psychological thing was going on.”

  I flipped back to yesterday’s session, probing my memory for allusions to suicide. Anything remotely depressive.

  Just the opposite, she’d seemed ebullient.

  But anyone could be fooled.

  This time the silence led Guzman to move a few feet away. He looked at his watch. Barker’s and Refugia’s hips edged closer as they continued to chat.

  Guzman said, “We do see some bizarre suicides. You probably have, too, working with the cops.”

  “You bet.”

  “What I mean, Doc, is you get a scene you’re sure is a murder then you find out it isn’t.”

  “Something staged.”

  “Exactly. Like this woman we had last year, must’ve really despised her husband’s guts. She ties her hands behind herself with duct tape but only after she positions the handle of his hunting knife so the blade’s sticking out between the slats of a chair. Facing out, you know? Then she gets down on her knees, right in front of the knife, and stabs herself in the head.”

  He winced. “Big blade, heavy duty. Goes right through the bone into her brain, talk about pain. The impact makes her jerk back, she falls hard enough to take the knife with her, we find it like that, sticking out of her. Top of that, she made sure to direct attention to the husband by writing in her diary that he was out to kill her and leaving the diary on a table where you couldn’t miss it.”

  “Too obvious,” I said.

  “That’s the first thing made the cops suspicious. But there was also physical evidence. Dust on her knees, and the shape of the bloodstains didn’t fit someone chopping her from above. What clinched it was she used gloves when she touched the knife so that only his prints would be on it. But she forgot about the inside, the only DNA there was hers. Also, the husband had a total alibi. Screwing his girlfriend in a motel.”

  I said, “All that trouble for nothing.”

  “Exactly, Doc. Though I guess she got what she wanted, which was obviously to be dead. You see something like that, you start to doubt your own reality. But I guess that’s not what happened here, right? You’re not saying Ms. Mars was seriously depressed or disturbed.”

  “I’m not saying much of anything, Chris.”

  “I know, I know, sorry,” said Guzman. “But if she was depressed and afraid or too weak to take her own life, she could’ve had someone else do it for her in a painless way.”

  “Forcing her mouth and nose shut?”

  “Okay, yeah, maybe it’s ridiculous, why not just swallow some pills?” He shrugged. “That’s the way I am. Too curious.”

  “That’s how you learn, Chris.”

  “Maybe I should tell Rob, ’cause I don’t think lunch is on the schedule, anymore.” He took a couple of steps toward Barker, changed his mind, returned to my side. “Nah, he’ll just rag on me. If he gets antsy, let him come here.”

  He cracked his knuckles. “You like working with the cops?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ve been thinking about applying, myself. Maybe, end up a detective one day.”

  “Curiosity’s a good trait for a detective.”

  “That’s what I figure. Problem is the fire departm
ent pays great and my wife doesn’t want me carrying a gun. Plus I like what I do. Sometimes I even get to do a little psychology—seeing people in all kinds of stress.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Like last week—oh, man, look at that dog.”

  Barker had fished out his phone and was taking a selfie of himself and Refugia. Then another. A whole series of shots ensued, his arm snaking around her shoulder, hers circling his waist.

  Guzman said, “You wouldn’t believe the stuff he’s got on his phone. One day, Tonya, that’s his girl, she’ll get suspicious and check it out. When that happens…” He ran a finger across his throat.

  Same gesture Thalia had made yesterday.

  Guzman rubbed his wedding band. Gold, etched with two hearts. “How long do you think it’ll take for Lieutenant Sturgis to get here?”

  “He’s usually prompt.”

  “I’m asking ’cause if we get another call it’ll be tricky, we’ll have to explain to the dispatcher…so you treat mostly older folk.”

  “Actually, I specialize in children.”

  His brow knitted. “Are you saying she was in some kind of second childhood?”

  “Do you have kids of your own, Chris?”

  “One. Anabella, eight months old, she’s crawling like crazy.”

  “Got a picture?”

  “Long as you asked.” Big grin. “My phone’s G-rated.”

  He’d scrolled through the first two dozen shots of a chubby blond baby when movement up the road drew us away from the tiny screen.

  Barker and Refugia had shifted closer to each other, no air between them. They moved apart as a big, wide figure in a gray suit headed their way.

  The man’s stork legs appearing too flimsy for the watermelon-shaped trunk they supported. Long arms swung loosely with each rapid step.

  Barker and Refugia moved to opposite edges of the stone path. The convex belly that was Milo’s opening act asserted itself as he loped toward them. His big, black-haired head was carried low and thrust forward, as if battling a headwind.

  The same stance you see in rodeo bulls itching to inflict pain.

  Drawing himself up to his full six-three, Milo looked at each of them, flashed his badge, and began talking. Refugia had the tissue pushed up against her mouth, again. Barker looked stunned. Milo said something that made Barker turn toward Guzman and me. He gave his partner a palms-up what’s-the-story signal.