“I checked for that,” he said. “Right after you told me about Shawna. No obvious similars.”
“Things happen,” I said. “Stuff no one knows about. Especially when there’s money involved.”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t argue.
We left the Med Center and walked to the no parking zone in front, where he’d left the unmarked. A parking ticket flapped under the windshield wipers. He crumpled it and tossed it in the car’s backseat.
I said, “At the very least, it would be worth talking to Shawna’s mother. She might be able to confirm or deny the weekend event in Santo Leon. Maybe she’s still working at the Hilton.”
“Someone else to make miserable,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, let’s blow by. After that, I’m heading out to Sherman Oaks to see Jane Abbot. Happy Mother’s Day.”
The Beverly Hilton sits at the western edge of Beverly Hills, just east of where the L.A. Country Club begins its dominance of Wilshire. The drive from Westwood was five minutes. The hotel’s personnel office was cooperative but careful, and it took a while to find out that Agnes Yeager had left the Hilton’s employ nine months ago.
“She didn’t stay long,” said Milo. “Problems?”
“No problems at all,” said the assistant personnel manager, Esai Valparaiso, a small, friendly man in a tight brown suit. “We didn’t dismiss her, she just left.” Valparaiso’s thumb flicked the edge of the folder. “Without notice, it says here.”
“Any idea where she went?”
“No, sir, we don’t follow them.”
“And her job was to clean rooms.”
“Yes, sir—she was a Housekeeper One.”
“Could I have her most recent address?”
Valparaiso’s hands spread atop his desk. “I hope she hasn’t done anything that reflects upon the hotel.”
“Not unless grief’s bad for your image.”
“Twelve hundred Cochran,” Milo said, reading the slip as we headed for the car. “The place Mindy told us about.” He plugged Agnes Yeager’s name into DMV. “No wants, warrants, violations, but the address is back in Santo Leon.”
“Maybe she gave up, moved back.”
He got the area code for the farm town, called Information. “Not listed— Okay, let’s have a look at Cochran.”
The apartment was a six-unit dingbat just south of Olympic, on the east side of the street. White-stucco box faced with blue diamonds, remnants of sparkle paint glinting at the points, an open carport packed with older sedans, and a spotless concrete yard where there should’ve been lawn. No Yeager on the mailbox in front, and we were about to leave when an old black man leaning on a skinny chromium cane limped out of the front unit and waved.
His skin was the color of fresh eggplant, shaded to pitch where a wide-brimmed straw hat blocked the sun. He wore a faded blue work shirt buttoned to the neck, heavy brown twill trousers, and bubble-toed black work shoes with mirror-polished tips.
“Sir,” said Milo.
Tip of the hat. “So who did what to who, Officers?” The cane slanted forward as he limped toward us. We met him midway to the carport.
Milo said, “We’re looking for Agnes Yeager, sir.”
Cracked gray lips canted downward. “Agnes? Is this about her daughter? Something finally happen with that?”
“You know about her daughter.”
“Agnes talked about it,” said the man. “To anyone who’d listen. I’m around all the time, so I ended up doing lots of listening.” Bracing himself on the cane, he held out a horned hand, which Milo grasped. “William Perdue. I pay the mortgage on this place.”
“Detective Sturgis, Mr. Perdue. Nice to meet you. You’re talking about Mrs. Yeager in the past tense. When did she leave?”
Perdue worked his jaws and placed both hands on the cane. The straw of his hat brim had come loose near the band, and the sunlight poking through created a tiny lavender moon under his right cheekbone. “She didn’t leave of her own will—she got sick. Nine or so months ago. Happened right here. My niece was down visiting me from Las Vegas. She’s a traffic dispatcher for the police there, works the morning shift and tends to get up early, so she was out that morning just before sunrise. She heard it—a big noise from Agnes’s apartment.” Twisting slowly, Perdue pointed to the ground-floor unit across from his. “Agnes fell down, right inside her door. The door was open, and the newspaper was on the floor next to her. She went outside to fetch it, took a step back inside, and collapsed. Tariana said she was breathing, but not too strong. We called 911. They said it looked like a heart attack. She didn’t smoke or drink—all that sadness was probably what caused it.”