I smiled.
He said, “Great, let’s check out that restaurant.”
He left his unmarked at the crime scene and we drove west to Robertson in my Seville. Bijou: A Dining Place was a brown-brick storefront set close enough to the 10 Freeway to harvest soot on its signage. The brick was grimy, too, but a picture window sparkled.
The morning special was blueberry pancakes. Posted hours said Breakfast and Lunch Only, Closed by Three p.m.
The restaurant’s interior said it was probably a venerable diner remodeled to look even older. From the freshness of the green vinyl seating and the laminate tabletops patterned to look like Formica, a recent upgrade. The kind of movie-star headshots you see in dry cleaners hung on the walls, along with black-and-white shots of pre-freeway L.A.
An old man reading The Wall Street Journal sat at the counter, nursing coffee and a sweet roll. Three of seven booths were occupied: Up in front, two young moms tried to chat while tending to bibbed, squirming toddlers in booster chairs. Behind them, a husky apple-faced man in his thirties ate steak and eggs while penciling a puzzle book. At the back, a brown-uniformed parcel driver small enough to be a jockey worked on a mountain of pancakes while grooving to his iPod. Both men looked up when we entered, returned to their recreation. The women were too busy with their kids to notice.
A waitress, young, blond, shapely, sleeve-tattooed, had the shift to herself. A short-order cook with an Incan face sweated behind the pass-through.
Milo waited until the waitress had refilled Wall Street’s coffee before approaching.
She said, “Sit anywhere you like, guys.”
Her badge chirped Hedy! Milo’s badge ruined her smile. The old man put his paper aside and eavesdropped.
Hedy said, “Let me get the owner.”
Milo said, “Do you know Vita Berlin?”
“She eats here.”
“Regularly?”
“Kind of,” she said. “Like two times a week?”
The old man said, “What’d that one do, now?”
Milo faced him. “She died.”
Hedy said, “Omigod!”
The old man, unperturbed, said, “How?”
“Unnaturally.”
“What does that mean? Suicide? Accident?” A bushy white eyebrow compressed to the shape of a croquet wicket. “Worse? Yeah, probably worse if the constabulary’s bothering to show up.”
Hedy said, “Oh, Sam.”
The old man regarded her with pity.
Milo turned to him. “You knew Vita.”
“Knew enough not to like her. What happened to her-she mouthed off to the wrong guy and he hauled off and bopped her one?”
Hedy said, “Omigod, Sam, this is terrible. Can I go get Ralph, Officers? He’s in back.”
Milo said, “Ralph’s the owner?”
The old man said, “Of this gourmet establishment.”
“Sure.”
Hedy rushed toward the Exit sign.
The old man said, “They’ve got a thing going. Her and Ralph.”
Milo said, “Sam?”
“Samuel Lipschitz, certified actuary,” said the old man. “Blessedly retired.” He wore a burnt-orange cardigan over a white shirt buttoned to the neck, gray hopsack slacks, argyle socks, cordovan lace-ups.
“What was it about Vita you didn’t like, Mr. Lipschitz?”
“So you’re verifying she was murdered.”
Raising his voice on the last word caused the young mothers to look over. The driver and the puzzle-solver didn’t react.
Milo said, “That wouldn’t surprise you.”
“Yes and no,” said Lipschitz. “Yes, because murder’s a low-frequency event. No, because, as I said, she had a provocative personality.”
“Who’d she provoke?”
“Anyone she felt like. She was an equal-opportunity harridan.”
“She was disruptive here?”
“She’d come swaggering in like a man, plop down in a booth, and start glaring, like she was just waiting for someone to do something that would give her the excuse to pull a snit. Everyone was wise to her so we ignored her. She’d sulk, order her food, eat, sulk some more, pay and leave.”
Lipschitz chuckled.
“So she really pushed someone too far, ay? How’d they do it? Where’d they do it?”
“I can’t get into that, sir.”
“Just tell me one thing: Was it around here? I don’t live in the neighborhood anymore, moved to Alhambra when I retired. But I come back to this place because I like the pastries, they get ’em from a Danish baker all the way out in Covina. So if there’s something I should worry about personal-security-wise, I’d appreciate your telling me. I’m seventy-four, would like to squeeze in a few more years.”
“From what we’ve seen, sir, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“That’s ambiguous to the point of being meaningless,” said Lipschitz.
“It wasn’t a street crime. It doesn’t appear connected to gangs or a robbery.”
“When did it happen?”
“Sometime last night.”
“I come here during the day I should be fine?”
“Mr. Lipschitz, is there anything else you can tell us about Vita?”
“Other than her being abrasive and antisocial? I did hear about something but I didn’t witness it firsthand. A confrontation, right here. Four, five days ago, I was in Palm Springs visiting my son. Missed my pastry and all the excitement.”
“Who told you about it?”
“Ralph-here he is, let him tell you himself.”
Ralph Veronese was no older than thirty, tall and borderline-emaciated with long, thick dark hair, a rock star’s cheekbones and slouchy stance. He wore a black bowling shirt, low-slung skinny jeans, work boots, a diamond stud in his left lobe. One arm was brocaded in blue ink.
His hands were rough, his voice soft. He asked if we could speak outside and when Milo assented, voiced his thanks profusely and guided us through the cafe to a rear alley. A red van occupied the single parking slot.
“Hedy just told me about Vita. I can’t believe it.”
“You don’t see anyone wanting to hurt her?”
“No, it’s not that. I mean I’m not saying someone would hurt her, it’s just… someone you know. She was here a couple of days ago.”
“She was a regular?”
“Two, three times a week.”
“Big fan of the food.”
Veronese didn’t answer.
Milo said, “Something must’ve drawn her here.”
“She could walk from her house. That’s what she told me once. ‘It’s not like you’re a great chef, I don’t have to waste gas.’ I said, ‘And hopefully we won’t give you any.’ She didn’t laugh. She never laughed.”
“Cranky lady.”
“Oh, yeah.”
