Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [46]
“She wasn’t sick or anything. We asked the doctor about that right away—was she not telling something, so we wouldn’t worry? Nothing. The last time the doctor saw her was yesterday, after she left the police station. He gave her something to help her sleep. She was so incredibly upset by the robbery—even though we had insurance, she hated the idea of strangers rooting through the house.”
He ran his thumb along the welting on the bench cushion, a cloudlike pouf upholstered in Clarence House blue velvet. Eloise had once pointed it out to me with pride—not for the $400-a-yard fabric, but for the stiff patch where Katharine, age five, had smeared Elmer’s glue pasting illustrations into her first book report.
“We thought she’d be so happy when the police found most of her jewelry.” Winston sighed and looked up again. “It was in some pawnshop in Koreatown. The cops said we were lucky it hadn’t been broken up yet.”
The night before, Eloise had given the family a dinnertable account of going down to the police station, groups of women wandering among the tables, just as I’d seem them doing, picking up bangles and brooches like it was a pasha’s yard sale. A couple of acquaintances had spotted her and waved a bit guiltily—“Oh, Eloise, I think I saw your David Webb pin over there … Eloise, isn’t this your Cartier panther bracelet?”
But the cops hadn’t let her take her jewelry home. There were two more days of showings, in case there was some dispute, and anyway, it was evidence.
Mr. Davis’s voice rolled up the stairs, the words indistinct but the tone unmistakably summoning. Winston excused himself and hustled downstairs as my phone rang. It was Joel, my coroner mole.
“Two options, Minerva,” he said, cutting to the chase, this time in William Powell’s Nick Charles voice. “Neither of them murder. Toxicology results will take a few weeks, but the white coats favor accidental overdose or suicide. Paramedics found empty sleeping pill bottles. And your Homicide guys just left. Keep it mum, okay? Over and out.”
I felt myself go flushed and teary, and a shameful thought crossed my mind. Murder would almost have been preferable—horrible, but cleaner in its way.
Winston labored back up the stairs. If he noticed any difference in me, he didn’t say so.
“Dad wondered if you’d be willing to go get Mom’s jewelry from the station. The cops called and said that under the circumstances, it’s okay, they have plenty to make their case. Those guys know you, and Dad’s written a note authorizing it. Here. He’s in no shape to do it. And the, ah, funeral’s the day after tomorrow.”
I said sure.
Winston braced a hand against my shoulder. “Minerva, before you go, we all agreed that we want you to have something to remember her by.” From his pocket, he fished something out and dangled it from his fingertips. A delicate rose-gold bangle as finely braided as hair. Like a Victorian mourning bracelet, fashioned from the locks of the dear departed. I had never seen it off Eloise’s arm, until Winston slid it onto mine.
“You know, she always insisted she be buried with all her jewelry. She made such a big deal out of it. We always kidded her about trying to take it with her. But the lawyer told Dad it was in the will. So we wanted to make sure you got this now …” Winston’s voice trailed away. “See you later? Marita’s fixing some food, if you’re hungry.”
I couldn’t remember ever being less hungry. For the second time that day, I headed toward the BHPD, wondering why a rich woman, a healthy woman, a happy wife, a woman who’d just had the one-in-a-million luck of getting her stolen treasures back—why would she kill herself? It had to be an accident.
The same desk sergeant who’d joked about the Hope Diamond was as solemn as a pallbearer when I handed over the note and signed for Eloise’s jewelry. The white plastic property bag was unmarked, probably the only bag in Beverly Hills that didn’t brag about where it came from.
Small but heavy,