“You said you were Homicide.”
“We look into suicides, as well.”
“Suicide? Why would Elise commit suicide?”
“She was moody, Sal. Sometimes moods get the best of people.”
“She wasn’t moody like that,” said Fidella.
“Like what?”
“Like suicidal. She never talked about ending it.”
I said, “Those times she’d drink and lock herself into her room, there was no way to know how she felt.”
“But she always came out of it. And got herself in a
“How long did she take to cheer up?”
“Like… a day. She’d call me, let’s go out, Sal, have a nice dinner.”
“Was it ever longer than a day?”
“I dunno… maybe sometimes it was two.” Fidella cracked his knuckles. “Elise wasn’t some nut-job, you guys are on the wrong path if you’re thinking suicide. Lots of times, I saw her happy. Why would she kill herself? She did okay money-wise, was even talking about getting a bigger place.”
“She own the house?”
“No, it’s a rental, she was talking about renting a bigger place. And it’s not like she was drinking the day I found her, there was no bottle in the bathroom. And why the hell would she put herself on ice, you answer me that.”
Milo said, “At this point, Sal, we’ve got questions not answers. Let’s get back to your schedule. After lunch, you drove around looking for possible employment. Then what?”
“Then like I said, I drove home and got on the phone and came up empty. You want my phone records?”
“If you don’t mind.”
Fidella stared. “You’re serious.”
“We need to be, Sal.”
“Fine, look at my phone records, I got nothing to hide.”
Milo had him sign a release form.
Fidella said, “You guys are unbelievable. You wanna bother, suit yourselves, but I can tell you what you’re gonna find: I made calls to a buncha places downtown. Real short calls, no one gave me the time of day.”
“Frustrating,” I said.
“Been through it before, something’ll turn up.”
Milo said, “What time did you finish making your calls?”
“Musta been fiveish, five thirty. Took a walk over to Van Nuys Boulevard, there’s a bar, Arnie Joseph’s. I had a coupla drinks, some shrimp and wasabi peas and hickory almonds, and watched TV. Over there, they’ll remember me, they know me. Just do me a favor, don’t tell them I’m a suspect or nothing. I don’t need no one looking at me weird.”
“No problem,” said Milo.
Fidella studied him. “What’re you gonna tell ’em?”
“That you’re a witness. When did you leave Arnie Joseph’s?”
“Musta been eightish, eight thirty. What’d I do then? Go home, fix myself a sandwich—anchovies, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese. Then I called Elise because she still wasn’t picking up. So I watched more TiVo, had a beer, brushed my teeth and used mouthwash for the cheese and the anchovies, just in case Elise answered. She didn’t, I said forget about her, she’ll call you like she always does. Then I got worried ’cause this was longer than usual and drove over. Musta been close to elevenish.”
“You were home for most of the evening.”
“Seeing as the yacht was out of commission and the Malibu Beach house was being borrowed by Brad and Angelina? Yeah, I was home. Where else should I go?”
Fidella slumped and his eyes grew sad. As if his question had turned metaphysical.
“Nowhere to go,” he said.
We left him pouring a third tequila.
CHAPTER
6
Milo drove a block from Fidella’s house, parked, and called in a search for current wants and warrants. Clean, but Fidella had paid a fine for a first-offense DUI eighteen months ago. “Time to verify his whereabouts, I’ll drop you off first.”
“You see him as a serious suspect?”
“I see him as someone whose whereabouts need to be verified.”
“Planning on taking Van Nuys to the Glen?”
“Yup.”
“You’ll pass that bar on the way.”
Arnie Joseph’s Good Times Inn sat north of Riverside, your basic dim, tobacco-bitter, serious-drinker establishment. The octogenarian behind the bar verified Sal Fidella’s account. So did bowls of dried shrimp that looked like fish food, hickory almonds, wasabi peas. Mention of Fidella’s name elicited smirks from the other customers. A woman nursing a beer said, “Sal Fidella, the luckiest fella.”
“Lucky, how?” said Milo.
“He won a jackpot in Reno. Didn’t he tell you? He tells everyone.”
“Claim to fame,” said a man.
The woman put her beer down. Fifty, stout, gray-haired, wearing a pink waitress uniform created by the same sadist who designs bridesmaid’s dresses. “So what’s he a witness to?”
“A crime.”
“Not some get-rich-quick thing?”
“Sal’s into that?”
“Sal talks a lot.”
“About what?”
“Coulda been, shoulda been. What’s he a witness to?”
“A crime.”
She shrugged, turned away.
Milo walked up to her. “Anything else I should know?”
“Not from me.” She buried her face in her mug.
Another man said, “Hey, if Sal had enough money he could finance an infomercial, sell a million of something. You ask him what something is, he says it don’t matter.”
“That’s ’cause money ain’t the issue, smarts is,” said a guy nursing a tall glass of something amber.
Milo said, “Sal’s not smart?”
“Wins a ten-grand jackpot and blows it in a day? You tell me.”
The guy next to him said, “Straight down the toilet, oughta work for the government.”
Laughter slithered up and down the bar.
Milo distributed business cards like a Vegas dealer. A few people actually read them. “Anything else anyone wants to tell me about Sal?”
A man laughed. “We love Sal. Sometimes he even offers to pick up a tab.”
Back in the car, Milo said, “Tells us five, tells them ten, even a bunch of alkies know he’s a loser. Elise was an educated woman, smart enough to teach at Prep and tutor SATs. Why would she hang with someone like that?”
“Love,” I said. “The ultimate mystery.”
