also have one female of African background, one Asian, and two undetermined.”
“Their ages?”
“Approximately twenties to forties.”
“How long have the heads been in the ground?”
“It’s hard to be precise, Lindsay. But yes, they could all have been buried in the last ten years.”
Since Chandler bought the Ellsworth compound.
I hung up and called out to Conklin, asked him to join me in the pantry.
Conklin can read me like a map.
He knew that I felt pressure from Brady to work on Revenge and that at the same time, I was committed to the Ellsworth case. I wanted to do both.
I told him about my conversation with Claire.
He said to me, “I’ll work on Nicole.”
I nodded, said, “Good. While you do that, I’m going to use my famous charm on the movie star.”
Chapter 21
Conklin held the back door open for Nicole, then followed her out to the patio. They ducked into the tent and Conklin said hello to a tech who was labeling bags of dirt.
“Got booties?” Conklin asked.
The tech handed him a carton of disposable shoe covers and Conklin took two pairs, then handed one pair to Nicole.
A brick path skirted the base of the wall, and once their feet were swaddled in plastic, Nicole and Conklin walked around the shadowy patch of garden.
Conklin focused his attention on Nicole Worley, watched her body language as she told him that she was a biologist and was hoping a teaching job would open in one of the schools within commuting distance of the Ellsworth place.
“My parents are getting older, and it’s better for them if I’m around. I keep them from killing each other — oh, I didn’t mean that literally.”
Conklin smiled, said, “I knew what you meant.”
Nicole slipped into her tour-guide role, talked about Bryce Ellsworth, his five wives and fourteen children, how the house survived the great fire of 1906. She had anecdotes about Prohibition and about Billie Holiday, the famous chanteuse, who’d sung for the Ellsworth family in their own parlor.
As Nicole and Conklin rounded the corner of the lot, Nicole indicated the four six-story houses beyond the wall.
Nicole said, “These houses are high for this area, but Bryce Ellsworth wanted them to balance the height of the main house. He liked symmetry. Notice that there are no windows facing the back garden. This is one of the interesting things about this place. I can’t even see the garden from my flat in number two.”
“What was the point of not having back-facing windows?”
“The first Mrs. Ellsworth was very private. I think it was her idea to keep the help from spying on her when she walked in the garden.”
Conklin looked up at the brick buildings, built at the same time as the Ellsworth house. As Nicole had said, the windows were false, brick outlines with no glass, which made the one real window in the next-to-last building stand out.
“There’s a window on the top floor of number six.”
“Number six has been boarded up for years,” Nicole told him. “I’m pretty sure that window opens onto a stairwell.”
Conklin had gotten what he could from Nicole Worley’s running on about the history of the house and San Francisco. Now he wanted answers.
“Who does the gardening?”
“Ricky someone. I can find out.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Not currently. Not seriously. No one I’ve brought here.”
“Have any of your friends been hanging out here recently?”
“Inspector Conklin, I’m starting to feel that you’re harassing me.”
“Nicole, would you rather come to the police station and spend a few hours with me and Sergeant Boxer? We can hold you as a material witness.”
Her eyes welled up. “I don’t bring my friends here.”
Conklin pressed on.
“Have you seen anyone on or near the grounds who struck you as out of place?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“What about those star tours? Do the tourists come into the garden?”
“No, and they don’t come into the house either. It’s strictly an outside-the-front-gate lecture series.”
“Thank you, Nicole. I need your contact information.”
Conklin smiled, gave her a pad and a pen. Watched her write, took back the notepad, and handed her his card.
“I’ll need the gardener’s name and number, and if you think of anything, anything, call me anytime.”
“I will certainly do that.”
Conklin nodded at the tech who was photographing one of the grave markers.
“We’ll be here for a while. Until we know who those seven victims are and the circumstances of their deaths, we’ll be turning over every stone.”
Chapter 22
I’d grown up seeing Harry Chandler’s face in both huge Hollywood productions and tight, well-produced independent films. He was sexy, had terrific range, and was convincing as a hero and as a villain.
I’d checked out Chandler’s bio before getting on the road to South Beach Harbor, and as I’d expected, his story was now colored by the disappearance of his high-society wife, presumed dead. Much had been written about Chandler’s trial and acquittal, a story as dramatic as any film since Citizen Kane.
Popular opinion had it that even though the evidence wasn’t there, Chandler had nonetheless been involved in the crime. He had made a few pictures since he’d been found not guilty of murder, including the iconic Time to Reap, a cynical look at the meltdown of the global economy.
Chandler had won an Oscar for that performance. His second. I have to admit, I was eager to see him in real life.
It was only a four-mile drive from Vallejo Street to South Beach Harbor and the yacht club, both of which were part of the gentrification of the industrial area that had started in the 1980s.
I took Pierce to Broadway, then took a right to the Embarcadero. To my left was the bay. I saw sailboat masts showing above the yachts filling the harbor.
I parked my car in the lot, then found the security guard inside the harbor office at the entrance to the South Beach Yacht Club. He wrote down my name and badge number, made a call, and I went through a gate and found Chandler’s boat, the Cecily, at the end of a pier. It was a sleek, eighty-foot-long modern yacht, Italian make, a top- of-the-line Ferretti, so impressive it actually made me imagine a life in a super-luxury craft on the bay.
I walked down the pier and found Harry Chandler waiting for me, sitting in a folding chair at the foot of his slip. He saw me at the same moment I saw him; he put down his newspaper, stood up, and came toward me.
