Guilt

“The case resolves, I might just take you up on that.”

“The current owners agreed to talk to you. They’re good people.”

“Do they remember the Asherwoods?”

“Talk to them,” said Zeiman.

CHAPTER 17

Researching the person you’re trying to influence is a handy tool when peddling gewgaws, pushing con games, and practicing psychotherapy.

The same goes for witness interviews; before reaching out to the F. Walker Monahans of Beverly Hills, I searched their names on the Web.

Mister sat on the board of two banks and Missus, a woman named Grace, occupied similar positions at the Getty, the Huntington, and the volunteer committee of Western Pediatric Medical Center.

The hospital affiliation made me wonder if she’d be the link to Dr. James Asherwood.

A search of his name pulled up nothing but a twelve-year-old Times obituary.

Dr. James Walter Asherwood had passed away of natural causes at his home in La Canada-Flintridge, age eighty-nine. That placed him at forty or so during the period Ellie Green had lived at the house in Cheviot Hills. Easily feasible age for a relationship. For unwanted fatherhood.

Asherwood’s bio was brief. Trained at Stanford as an obstetrician-gynecologist, he’d “retired from medicine to pursue the life of a sportsman and financier.”

The Times hasn’t run social pages in a while and being rich and wellborn no longer entitles you to an obit. At first glance, nothing in Asherwood’s life seemed to justify the paper’s attention, but his death was the hook: “A lifelong bachelor, Asherwood had long voiced intentions to bequeath his entire estate to charity. That promise has been kept.”

The final paragraph listed beneficiaries of Asherwood’s generosity, including several inner-city public schools to which Asherwood had bequeathed a hangarful of vintage automobiles. Western Peds was listed midway through the roster, but unlike the cancer society, Save the Bay, and the graduate nursing program at the old school across town, the hospital wasn’t singled out for special largesse.

Fondness for the nursing school because he remembered one particular RN?

Had ob-gyn skills meant detour to a career as an illegal abortionist? Did dropping out of medicine imply guilt? A legal concession as part of a plea deal?

Lifelong bachelor didn’t mean loveless. Or childless.

Doctor to financier. Moving big money around could mean the ability to purchase just about anything, including that most precious of commodities, silence.

No sense wondering. I called the F. Walker Monahans.

A beautifully inflected female voice said, “Good evening, Doctor, this is Grace. Andy told us you’d be phoning.”

No curiosity about a psychologist asking questions on behalf of the police. “Thanks for speaking with me, Mrs. Monahan.”

“Of course we’ll speak with you.” As if a failure to cooperate would’ve been unpatriotic. “When would you care to drop by?”

“We can chat over the phone.”

“About cars?” Her laugh was soft, feline, oddly soothing.

“About a car once owned by Dr. James Asherwood.”

“Ah, Blue Belle,” she said. “You do know that we’ve sold her.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, a month ago, she’ll be shipped in a few weeks. Immediately after Pebble Beach we were besieged with offers but refused. Years later, we’re finally ready. Not without ambivalence, but it’s time to let someone else enjoy her.”

“Where’s she going?”

“To Texas, a natural gas man, a very fine person we know from the show circuit. He’ll pamper her and drive her with respect, win-win situation for everyone.”

“Congratulations.”

“We’ll miss her,” said Grace Monahan. “She’s quite remarkable.”

“I’ll bet.”

“If you’d like to pay your respects before she leaves, that can be arranged.”

“Appreciate the offer,” I said. “If you don’t mind, could we talk a bit about Dr. Asherwood?”

“What, in particular, would you like to know?”

“Anything you can tell me about him. And if you’re familiar with a woman he knew named Eleanor Green, that would be extremely helpful.”

“Well,” she said, “this is a person we’re going to discuss and that deserves a more personal setting than the phone, don’t you think? Why don’t you drop by tomorrow morning, say eleven? Where are you located?”

“Beverly Glen.”

“We’re not far at all, here’s the address.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Monahan.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Board seats and ownership of a multimillion-dollar show car had led me to expect residence in Beverly Hills’ uppermost echelons. A manse at the northern edge of the flats, or one of the mammoth estates nestled in the hillocks above Sunset.

The address Grace Monahan gave me was on South Rodeo Drive, a pleasant but low-key neighborhood well away from the try-too-hard glitz and glassy-eyed tourism of the twenty-four-karat shopping district.

The numbers matched a nondescript, two-story, not-quite-Colonial apartment building on a block of similar structures, shadowed by the white marble monument on Wilshire that was Saks Fifth Avenue.

Monahan: 2A. A once-wealthy couple who’d fallen on hard times? The real reason for selling the blue Duesenberg?

I climbed white-painted concrete steps to a skimpy landing ringed by three units. The wooden door to 2A was open but blocked by a screen door. No entry hall meant a clear view into a low, dim living room. Music and the smell of coffee blew through the mesh. Two people sat on a tufted floral sofa. The woman got up and unlatched the screen.

“Doctor? Grace.”

Five and a half feet tall in spangled ballet slippers, Grace Monahan wore a peach-colored velvet jumpsuit and serious gold jewelry at all the pressure points. Her hair was subtly hennaed, thick and straight, reaching an inch below her shoulder blades. Her makeup was discreet, highlighting clear, wide brown eyes. The Pebble Beach photo was a decade old but she hadn’t aged visibly. Nothing to do with artifice; smile lines and crow’s-feet abounded, along with the inevitable loosening of flesh that either softens a face or blurs it, depending on self-esteem at seventy.

The duration and warmth of Grace Monahan’s smile said life was just grand in her eighth decade. One of those women who’d been a knockout from birth and had avoided addiction to youth.

She took my hand and drew me inside. “Do come in. Some coffee? We get ours from Santa Fe, it’s flavored with pinon, if you haven’t tried it, you must.”

“I’ve had it, am happy to repeat the experience.”

“You know Santa Fe?”

“Been there a couple of times.”

“We winter there because we love clean snow-have a seat, please. Anywhere is fine.”

Anywhere consisted of a pair of brocade side chairs or the floral sofa where her husband remained planted as