But the goose keeled over unexpectedly, the income stream dribbled out, and not only did Tara refuse to hook up with another Daddy, she wanted a lump-sum payment to finance her retirement, threatened Connie she’d tell the rest of the family about the scheme. That would mean more than lost income to Connie. It would spell disaster.”
“Swimming with the sharks,” he said. “Stupid delusional kid. But who was she waiting for that night at the Fauborg?”
“Maybe Connie.”
“You said she looked like she was out on a date.”
“Yes, I did.”
The elevator arrived. Empty. Once we were inside, he searched for cameras, found nothing but didn’t speak.
When we were back in the parking lot, he said, “Connie’s relationship with Tara was more than business?”
I smiled. “It happens.”
“A threesome,” he said. “Tara, Connie, and Steve-o, sex and money all meshed up together. Oh, man, that’s more than a soap opera. More like a reality show.”
“American Idolatry?”
We both laughed.
I said, “One more thing: Tara’s ambitions could’ve been fueled by promises Suss made to her, as in permanent relationship.”
“Leaving his wife for his bimbo?”
“Whether or not he meant it, it wouldn’t have seemed outlandish. Check out the society photos in any Westside throwaway. Geezers with arm candy.”
“Then he dies and she’s nothing but an ex-chippie. Yeah, that could motivate some serious foolishness.”
“In order to keep her believing, he bought her some bling.”
“The watch.”
“Jewelry would be attractive to Tara, because it’s relatively liquid and she could sell it privately without paying taxes. She wore the watch in front of Muhrmann but what if Suss gave her a lot of other baubles that she kept from him and Connie? If they’d found out, there’s yet another motive to punish her.”
“So the date at the Fauborg was a setup from their perspective. But what was Tara expecting?”
“A night of fun.”
In the car, he said, “They plan to kill her, why go public at a hotel and risk being seen?”
“Muhrmann never went inside, it’s only a fluke that we noticed him. Neil the waiter told us no one appeared during his shift, so maybe Connie never showed and Tara left and met up with Muhrmann. He told her there’d been a change in plans, Connie had rented a party pad in the Palisades. They drove to a predetermined spot where Connie was waiting and the two of them finished her off with a .45 and a shotgun. They went for overkill because Tara’s extortion had made it personal. Obscuring her face had the added bonus of making it tough to identify her. And it worked. We still don’t know who she really is.”
“Rub it in … okay, let’s do some drive-bys, see where these people bunk down.”
We took Laurel Canyon into the Valley, picked up the 134 west to the White Oak exit, headed south and crossed Ventura Boulevard, and climbed into the hills of prime Encino.
Portico Place was a gracious stretch of big houses shielded by healthy shrubbery and high gates. Phil and Connie Suss’s address matched one of the grandest constructions: two towering stories of hand-troweled, tile- roofed, ocher-stucco Tuscan Revival set off by meticulously shaped date palms and brandy-colored bougainvillea and preceded by a cobbled motor court. Filigree double gates revealed a white BMW 3 series and a bronze Lexus convertible.
Milo said, “Mama and Brother Frank go for 90210 but Phil and Connie sure ain’t slumming. Pretty good for a guy with no obvious income.”
He eased a soft whistle through his front teeth. “Nothing like the lucky sperm club.”
We watched nothing happen for nearly an hour before returning to the city.
Drs. Frank and Isabel Suss resided in 90210 but their house on the 500 block of North Camden Drive would’ve fit any middle-class suburb.
The one-story ranch was painted pinkish beige. A skimpy front yard was mostly concrete. An older Honda sat in front.
“Two doctors,” he said. “They’re probably gonna be at work.”
During the twenty minutes we sat there, the only action was a neighbor’s uniformed maid walking a mouse- sized Chihuahua.
He said, “Kinda downscale for two skin docs, no? I thought Botox brought in the bucks.”
“Maybe they don’t care about the material world.”
“Numbing faces for fun? The way things are going, I’ll believe anything.”
From the look of her real estate, Leona Suss cared plenty for the material world.
The three-story brown-brick Georgian evoked Monticello. If Thomas Jefferson hadn’t run out of cash. The property was thirty car lengths wide, cordoned by matching brick walls topped by verdigris metalwork. Granite medallions carved into camellia blossoms punctuated every ten feet. Smudges of moss were too perfectly spaced to be accidental. Topping the grille, variegated ivy streamed gracefully through coppery spikes, loops, and finials. Pruned to the precise point where light peeked through but privacy held fast.
A copper pedestrian gate offered glimpses of the front acre. No parking area, just shaded patches on lawn and brick walkway cast by specimen pines, sycamores, and cedars. Half the lot spread to the left of the house, offering glimpses of boxwood parterres, columnate Italian cypresses, rose gardens spitting color, a lattice pavilion.
I coasted along the west side of the property where automobile access was provided through a ten-foot slab-steel gate set nearly flush with the street. An exquisitely laced Chinese elm spread to the right. Something in the tree caught sun and glinted.
Security camera tethered to a stout branch, nearly concealed by foliage.
We returned to the front, looked for another camera, spotted it winking from the largest cedar.
Milo said, “If little Ms. Tara ever caught a glimpse of this, she’d be inspired. Want to take bets ol’ Markham showed it to her?”
I said, “Too bad for her.”
His cell played Shubert. He plugged into the hands-off, barked, “Sturgis.”
A woman barked back louder:
“Hi, Doc.”
Female laughter. “Hi, Lieutenant. I’ve got the autopsy report on your victim without a face. There was some alcohol in her system but nothing incapacitating, maybe a drink or two. No narcotics or prescription medication. Death by gunshot, no stunner there. My guess is the bullet entered before the shotgun pellets because we got a nice clean track through the brain and if she’d been blasted with shot initially it would’ve been like shooting the bullet into soup. No evidence of sexual assault, she’s never had a baby, but there was some substantial endometriosis, which could be genetic, or the result of scarring due to an STD. There’s also some fibrosed tissue in and around her rectum, so at some point she probably engaged in anal sex fairly regularly. Other than that, her organs were healthy.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“That’s the science part, Milo,” said Jernigan. “Now here’s the gut-feeling part: The wound pattern still bothers me but I can’t say it’s based on anything other than a little cognitive twinge. Assuming she got hit with the .45 first and the impact knocked her off her feet, there should’ve been more shotgun damage. She’d be prone, dead or close to it, and totally vulnerable to an overhead blast. But the pellets didn’t overlap with the bullet wound as much as I’d expect. In fact, the most severe sprinkling of shot is almost totally in line with the bullet along the vertical axis. Almost as if your two bad guys fired simultaneously.”
“Firing squad,” he said.
“That’s the image I got. But a skillful squad, the two of them standing side by side, coordinating perfectly. The shotgun damage was far from tight. The pellets pierced her sinuses as well as the lower part of her frontal
