Compulsion

“She blew the wrong guy off so he pays for an elaborate scheme to do her?”

“Or she blew the killer himself off,” I said. “Clive picked her up in a bar and there’s no reason to believe he was the only one.”

“Even really bad guys have feelings.”

“Everyone has feelings. Depends what you do with them.”

Big-rig mishaps and the usual Cal Trans idiocy stretched the drive back to L.A. and it was dark when I got home. I drank Chivas out by the pond, put Blanche in my lap, and tossed food to the fish. She wanted to watch them eat so we kneeled by the rock rim. The babies were almost big enough to swallow the pellets, kept worrying the bobbing circles until they disintegrated. The adults indulged their attempts and managed not to pull a Jonah.

Robin came out and joined us, chopsticking leftovers and forgoing her glass of wine because she was thinking of working some more.

Quieter than usual.

I said, “Mr. Dot-com call again?”

She shook her head. “There’s a wolf-note somewhere on the mandolin fretboard. If I don’t fix it, I won’t sleep.”

“My soul mate.” I kissed her, walked her to her studio, carried a now sleeping Blanche back to the house.

My e-mail was the usual blather and one message that interested me, sent a few minutes ago.

dr. delaware: found leonora bright’s brother’s name in the obit on their father. nothing criminal on him so far and it was too late to access s.f. property rolls to see if he owns a house there. see what i can do tomorrow.

george cardenas

I sent back a thanks and downloaded the e-mail attachment.

San Francisco Chronicle obituary section. Someone important enough to merit a piece with a byline.

The late Dr. Whittaker Bright, a New York native, trained at Cornell and Columbia, had been a professor of engineering at UC Berkeley with an expertise in transformers and a patent for a now obsolete switching device that had paid him royalties for over a decade. Death had come after a protracted illness. Widowed and remarried, “Whit” Bright was survived by his second wife, Bonnie, a daughter, Leonora, of Ojo Negro, and a son, Ansell, of San Francisco. In lieu of flowers, donations were to be sent to the American Heart Society.

What caught my eye was the date of death. Eight days before the butchery in Ojo Negro. Mavis Wembley’s story was looking better and better.

Just as I prepared to run a search on Ansell Bright, my phone rang.

“Doctor, this is Amber from your service. I had a Mr. Bragen calling from Alaska. He didn’t want to hold, said you can call him if you want. Didn’t sound like he cared one way or the other.”

Bragen’s number had an 805 prefix. Fishing up north but using a cell phone with a Ventura-Santa Barbara code.

A gruff voice said, “Yeah?”

“Sergeant Bragen? Alex Delaware.”

“The psychologist,” he said, as if the title amused him. “An earlier flight came up. Weather changes are quick up here, the connectors get iffy. I’ve spent too many days in the airport waiting for storms to pass.”

“Makes sense.”

“You want to know about Bright and Tranh. There’s not much to know. Big loser whodunit from day one and if there was anything forensically worthwhile the moron they hired as sheriff screwed it up. We had one suspect but he didn’t pan out.”

“Who’s that?”

“Bright’s ex-husband,” he said. “Ironclad alibi and he passed a poly.”

“Why’d you suspect him?”

“’Cause he was the ex. But forget it, it’s not him.”

“Could I have his name, just for the record?”

“Jose something. Mexican, probably illegal, in those days we weren’t allowed to ask. He worked at the feed store, unloading hay and whatnot. Claimed he was a big-time chef back in Guadalajara or wherever, but they all claim that.”

“Immigrants.”

“If everyone was so better off, why do they come here? Anyway, he’s not your guy, that woulda been nice. He and Bright were married six months, got divorced, he moved to Oxnard, got a job cooking at one of the hotels. Which is where twenty people saw him during the entire time frame of the murders. We also had witnesses eyeballing before and after. At his apartment complex, then at a bar that night dancing with his new girlfriend, so no way. I asked him to take a poly anyway, he agreed. Passed with flying colors. Claimed he and Leonora parted friendly, had a Christmas card from her to prove it. Also, he seemed real broken up about her dying. And for all I know, Bright wasn’t even the target, maybe Tranh was. Not that I ever found anyone who’d talk about her. Took the time to visit her family – big clan, down in Anaheim. Everyone crying and weeping and lighting candles to Buddha. Listening to them, Vicki was a nun, had no enemies.”

“You had reason to doubt that?”

“No,” he said. “But I’m not a trusting guy, by nature. You get up there today?”

“Sure did.”

“Still a one-horse town?”

“Maybe half a horse.”

“Place that rinky-dink, you’d think someone would’ve known something. But all those hicks could say was how nice they both were.” Harsh laughter. “Nice people is the bane of a detective’s existence.”

“While I was there, I met a woman named Mavis Wembley-”

“Oh, that one,” said Bragen. “Old Fatso. Stuck her nose into everything, couldn’t shut her up. But she had nothing to say, either.”

“You don’t buy her story about Leonora’s brother?”

“Yeah, right. You want to work that, good luck, pal. Can’t believe she’s still alive. Big as a cow. Like that alien in Star Wars – Jabba the whatever. She used to summon me. Her word. ‘Detective Bragen, may I summon you for a little talk?’ You’re working a case, you can’t close off anything, so I’d get over to her place and she’d sit in her chair and try to pump me for information. But like I said, you’ve got to follow up on everything so I talked to the brother. He also had an alibi – working, some gay job – we’re talking featherlight here. Even more emotional than Jose… Castro, that’s what it was. Jose Castro, like Fidel.”

“So much for Ansell,” I said.

“Ansell?”

“That’s his name, according to the father’s obituary.”

“Guy I spoke to called himself Dale. And that’s what his mother called him, too, and I’d expect she’d know. She’s the one I got his number from in the first place. And don’t waste your time with her, she died a few months after Leonora. Cancer, the father was heart problems I think. Bad-luck family. Dale was taking care of her, he was at her place when I called.”

“Maybe Dale’s his nickname,” I said.

“Whatever. Guy fluttered over the phone. It was like talking to a girl. This is not the caliber person who could overpower two healthy women and do what was done to them. You want to lose your lunch, get hold of those autopsy photos.”

Over the phone. He’d never met Ansell “Dale” Bright in person, had no inkling of the man’s size and strength.

I said, “I see what you mean.”

“I put it all in the file, Doctor.”