Dream House Read online

  I finished entering the Wilshire Division data and found the item Mindy had told me about:

  Wednesday, October 29, 10 P.M. 100 block of South Formosa Avenue. A vandal smashed an outside light fixture, then ripped it from the wall.

  I phoned Wilshire, asked for Burglary, and spoke to Detective Vince Porter, whom I'd seen just this morning. Which is what he said when he came on the line.

  “What now, Blume? Didn't get enough for your column?”

  Porter and I have a lukewarm relationship. He tolerates my questions and I try not to ask too many. Unspoken between us is the fact that my best friend, Aggie Lasher, was murdered five years ago, that the case has never been solved, and that I still phone Wilshire every few months, sometimes more often, to find out if any leads have surfaced. Although I direct those inquiries to Homicide, I'm sure all the detectives are aware of my nagging interest, and I suspect that's why they have me copy data from the big board instead of giving me sanitized photocopies of the police reports, the way some other division detectives do to make my job easier.

  “About the light fixture ripped from the wall Wednesday night on South Formosa,” I said. “Any idea who did it?”

  “Not a clue. The homeowners were out, came back after eleven, and discovered the vandalism. Is that it?”

  “What about Walter Fennel?”

  “Walter who?”

  I could tell he was playing with me. “The Walter on Martel whose house was vandalized Friday night, the Walter who was the reason Ed Strom was fined for violating a HARP ordinance. Obviously, there's a connection.”

  “For your information, Fennel and his wife were home watching TV at ten on Wednesday night.”

  “So they say.”

  “They're in their eighties, Blume.”

  “How hard is it to remove a light fixture?”

  “Not hard if you can reach it. It was a stretch for me, and I'm five-eleven. Fennel is five-six. And before you ask, Strom's ladder was in his garage, which was locked.”

  “Maybe Fennel brought something along to stand on.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Fennel lifted him to do the deed.” Porter snickered. “Give it up, Blume.”

  I tried picturing an eighty-year-old man dragging a stool four blocks and had to admit Porter was right. “What about the vandalism to Fennel's house?”

  “Strom has a solid alibi. Friday was Halloween. It was probably kids.”

  “You don't find all this too coincidental?”

  “Do you know something I don't?” he demanded.

  “No.” Even if I had information, I wouldn't have volunteered it. I don't respond well to snide.

  “Thanks for your interest, Blume. It's good to know you're vigilant. We can all sleep better.”

  “If you find out anything—”

  “You'll be the last to know,” Porter said, enjoying his own sarcasm.

  I accessed the L.A. Times online archives and found “The War of the Rosebushes.” Great title. Great story, too, about the Hollywood Hills neighborhood, bisected by the Hollywood Freeway, that is home to some of the Industry's celebrities (Francis Coppola's family owns three houses there). It's also home to the garden that was the subject of the article, a garden one critic found “tacky and ridiculous” while supporters, including friends of the garden's creators (all in the Industry), called it “restorative,” a “beautiful metaphor” for the “spiritual experience of an entire life.”

  The latter was a little de trop, I'll agree, and I suppose one man's Eden is another's Jurassic Park. But I was intrigued to read that tempers had flared among homeowners and threats had been exchanged because of the garden, because of paint colors and planter boxes.

  Because of HARP? I thought about Fennel and Strom, wondered whether this was the beginning of another war, whether wars were being waged in other HARP neighborhoods.

  I checked the Times site and found nineteen HARP articles and a Web site with a list of all the HARPs. Twelve districts, and more under consideration. Thirteen soon, if the Hancock Park group had its way. Not a lucky number.

  I did a search of last month's Wilshire Division Crime Sheet files. Almost every file had at least one case of vandalism, and most of them were car related.

  Most, but not all:

  Thursday, October 9. 1:00 A.M. 300 block of South Arden Boulevard. A vandal tore up a brick patio and damaged a wrought iron fence.

  Saturday, October 11. 3:30 A.M. 200 block of South Larchmont Boulevard. A vandal threw frozen lemons at a house and then fled on foot.

  Tuesday, October 14. 11:30 P.M. 100 block of North McCadden Place. A vandal struck the front window of a house with an unknown object.

  Wednesday, October 22. 1:30 P.M. 100 block of South Highland Avenue. Vandals spray-painted graffiti on a gate, driveway, and signs.

  The homes were in Hancock Park or the adjacent Larchmont Heights. Another HARP war? My mind raced with possibilities, and I forced myself to slow down. I tend to jump to conclusions.

  My Zeidie Irving, Bubbie G's late husband, used to tell a bittersweet joke about two elderly friends, Shlomo and Moishe, talking on a park bench. (In Zeidie's version, they're on a boardwalk in Miami, but I got him to agree they could be anywhere.) It's a joke that should be acted out for maximum effect, but I think you'll get the picture:

  Moishe, when the conversation reaches a lull: Nu.

  Shlomo: So.

  Moishe sighs. Inch by inch he straightens his hunched shoulders.

  Shlomo watches.

  With agonizing slowness and creaking knees, Moishe pushes himself up. A minute passes before he's standing, another before he takes a first, shuffling step.

  Shlomo shakes his head: Moishe, where you're rushing?

  I was probably rushing to get nowhere, too.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tuesday, November 4. 11:12 A.M. Corner of Hauser Boulevard and 3rd Street. A man became enraged at a woman over her driving and stopped his car in the middle of an intersection to yell at her. He then backed his car into her vehicle and drove off. (Wilshire)

  HANCOCK PARK WAS ORIGINALLY RANCHO LA BREA, A Spanish land grant taken over in the 1860s by Major Henry Hancock, an oil prospector who found oil and dinosaur fossils, and an ancient skeleton of a Native American woman that you can see at the La Brea Tar Pits if you're so inclined.

  Situated between downtown L.A. and the Pacific, Hancock Park is a rectangle bordered by Highland (west), Rossmore (east), Melrose (north), and Wilshire (south). The homes along the tree-lined streets, large and stately with lush foliage and velvet lawns, are a mix of two-story Tudor (brick-faced or stucco), Colonial Spanish, French, Mediterranean, and the occasional Moderne misfit that looks like it was air-dropped into the wrong neighborhood. The homes on Rossmore and Hudson and part of June have the added cachet of overlooking the rolling greens of the Wilshire Country Club.

  The mayor's official residence is in Hancock Park (neighboring Windsor Square homeowners claim it's in Windsor), as is the Canadian consul general's English mansion. Nat King Cole lived here, and Muhammad Ali, and the neighborhood has among its residents contemporary Hollywood names like Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith, along with other actors and writers, producers, and directors who could live in Beverly Hills but may prefer the anonymity of Hancock Park, where celebrities' names and addresses aren't revealed on a Map to the Stars.

  My dad says thirty-five years ago you could have purchased one of these mansions for $100,000. Today they run from $1 million to $6 million (the $1-million versions are fixer-uppers), and $100,000 won't buy you anything anywhere in L.A., except maybe a chimney. You can get the most for your Hancock Park dollar on Highland Avenue, especially on the east side of the street where the lots are deeper. It's a wide, elegant thoroughfare that loses some of its width and all of its elegance, along with the historically protected grass median showcasing a stately row of towering palm trees, when it exits Hancock Park at Melrose and runs north past the Hollywood Bowl to the 101 Freeway. The downside of Highla
nd, which explains the slightly lower home prices, is the early-morning to late-night heavy traffic and the accompanying noise that most Highland homeowners mute with double-paned glass windows.

  South Highland, the site of one of the vandalized homes, was my destination. I passed my sister Edie's house, crossed Second, and there it was on my right: a two-story taupe Tudor with scaffolding on the sides and the framing of a large addition in the front. The black graffiti was stark and ugly against the ivory gates and the flagstone walkway, and a large X blackened the name of the construction company on a sign planted on a parched lawn.

  After waiting several minutes in my parked Acura before a lull in traffic allowed me to open my door, I made a hasty exit and dashed to the sidewalk seconds before a car whizzed by. Many Highland homes have circular driveways. (Edie's does.) If you don't have a corner house, they're probably a must unless you're auditioning for Fear Factor or Survivor: The Big City.

  Sometime during the drive from my house, the sun had burned away the marine layer that had painted the city a gloomy gray. Squinting in the sudden bright light, I stood at the front door, too warm in my red cowl-neck sweater and black pea coat, and rang the bell several times. No one was home. The homeowners had probably moved out during the construction.

  I made out the contractor's name on the vandalized sign: ROGER MODINE, RM CONSTRUCTION. Another felled sign had been ripped in two. Bending down, I aligned the halves:

  NO TO HARP!

  Maybe I wasn't rushing after all.

  Back in my car, I waited for a break in the endless stream of vehicles speeding along Highland. Finally it was safe. I pulled out and was headed toward First when the old man sprinted off the curb and darted in front of me.

  I slammed my foot on the brake and gripped the steering wheel, my heart practically in my throat.

  He had appeared out of nowhere, an apparition in a pale gray robe, with a full head of steel-gray hair fanning above his ears and sprouting from his unruly brows. His cheeks were sunken and blotched with color, his eyes an intense watery blue. He could have been sixty or eighty.

  He rapped his cane on my windshield.

  I lowered my window and leaned out. “Could you please move away from the car, sir?” I was trying to restrain my anger. My heart was still pumping madly.

  “I have to get home.” He had a child's voice, high and whiny.

  “Sir—”

  “My leg hurts. My leg hurts and I have to pee.”

  I had no response for that. “Where do you live?”

  “With Margaret,” he said impatiently, as if I should have known. “Over there.” He pointed to the west side of Highland with his cane, which shook along with his hand.

  I put my car in park, got out, and approached him. He was wearing scuffed brown slippers and no socks on feet whose veins looked like mountain ridges.

  “What street do you live on?” I've never given a ride to a stranger, but even with the cane, the man was hardly a threat, and I couldn't leave him here.

  “Fuller. Like the brush.” His head shook a little, too. He probably had a touch of Parkinson's.

  Cars were lining up behind me. “Let me turn the corner to get out of traffic,” I said.

  He scowled. “If you don't want to help, just say so.”

  “I'll take you to Margaret. What's the house number?”

  The driver of the BMW behind me honked. I motioned to him to pass my car as the cars behind him were doing, but he was too close to me, and traffic in the next lane was too heavy. I held up my hand in a wait gesture, and returned my attention to the old man.

  “Don't you know Margaret?” he demanded with a flash of anger that sparked in his blue eyes. “She's my daughter.”

  The driver honked again and leaned out his window, a cell phone at his ear. “What the hell is this, a parking lot?” he yelled. “I have an appointment.”

  “Just a minute,” I called. “I'm helping someone.”

  “Well, hurry up. I don't have all day.”

  “I can't remember the number.” The old man sounded frustrated, angry. “I'll know the house when I see it.”

  “Okay. Let me help you to the car.” I touched his elbow.

  He jerked it away. “I can do it by myself.”

  I respect the independence of the aging. Bubbie G has ceded only a little of hers and has done so with great reluctance, refusing to grant victory to the macular degeneration that has stolen most of her central vision.

  The driver sounded his horn again. It was a long, uninterrupted honk. I held up my hand, my index finger extended this time to indicate “one more minute,” though I admit I was tempted to use another finger and suggest something less friendly and equally universal.

  The old man was limping. I followed him to make sure he didn't fall and walked around him to open the car door. He tossed in his cane and, grabbing the inside handle, lowered himself sideways onto the seat. His robe fell open, and I caught a glimpse of green paisley boxer shorts ballooning over skinny thighs blotched with black-and-blue marks, doorknob knees, and bruised, bony shins, which he swung around so that he was facing the windshield.

  “Do you need help with the seat belt?” I asked.

  “I don't need a seat belt! I need to pee.”

  “I'll fasten it for you,” I said, imitating the no-nonsense tone Edie uses successfully with her kids, and he didn't resist.

  Back behind the wheel, I crossed First. The driver of the BMW stayed on my butt for half a block, swerved around my Acura, saluted me with a blare of his horn, and burned rubber as he sped up the street. Bubbie G has a wealth of great Yiddish curses, but I couldn't think of one.

  “Which side of Beverly is your daughter's house on?” I asked, switching into the left lane. “North or south?”

  “Which side? The same as the restaurant,” he said with impatience. “The one with the animal's name.”

  “El Coyote?” I saw his nod. The south side. Just around the block from my sister. “What's your name?”

  “What's yours?”

  “Molly.”

  “Molly what?”

  “Blume.”

  “Molly Bloom like in Ulysses.” He frowned. “That's a ridiculous name. What were your parents thinking?”

  I get that reaction often, though people are usually more diplomatic. My high school English teacher mother claims she was unprepared for a girl and didn't think about the repercussions of giving me the name of James Joyce's lusty heroine when she filled out the birth certificate. Sometimes I tell people it was the aftereffects of her epidural.

  “I spell it B-L-U-M-E,” I said.

  The old man grunted.

  I wasn't about to press the point. “What's your name?”

  “Oscar Linney. Professor Linney.”

  “Professor of what?”

  “Architecture. I taught at USC for twenty-two years,” he said with pride. “I'm writing a book.”

  The University of Southern California is the rival of my alma mater, UCLA, though the rivalry matters mostly when you're talking football.

  “I'm fascinated by architecture,” I said. “What period are you writing about?”

  “I don't want to talk anymore.” He turned his head toward his window.

  I've had worse rejections.

  A few minutes later we neared Fuller. I turned left and drove slowly up the block.

  “Stop here,” he ordered when we were a little more than halfway up the second block.

  After parking the car, I walked around and opened his door. His hand shook and he was having trouble releasing the seat belt, but I sensed that an offer of help would annoy him. Finally he was free. He grabbed his cane, transferred it to his right hand, swung his legs around so that he was sitting sideways, then scooted forward and pushed himself up.

  I followed him about thirty feet to a beautifully maintained cream-colored two-story Spanish house with a red tile roof and black wrought iron balconies. A birch tree, its leaves stripped by autumn but n
o less stately, watched over a For Sale sign on a trim lawn bordered by a short hedge. In the flower bed against the front wall, a profusion of pansies preened in the sunlight. The driveway was empty.

  Linney hurried along the concrete walkway and climbed the two steps to an oak front door that looked freshly varnished. He stuck his bony, shaking hand into his robe pocket and pulled it out, looking surprised to find it empty. He grunted. “Forgot my key.”

  He rang the bell. No one answered. He rang again.

  “Damn bell is broken again!” he muttered, and pounded on the door. “Margaret! Let me in!”

  The bell was fine. I'd heard its eight-part familiar chime. Maybe this was the wrong house. “Professor—”

  “Margaret!” He lifted his cane and rapped on the door. “Margaret, this is your father! Open this door!”

  “There's a For Sale sign on the lawn. Are you sure—”

  “That's Hank's doing! Margaret would never sell this house. She loves this house!” He pounded on the door again.

  A slim, brown-haired man walked over from the house next door. He was in his thirties, about six inches taller than my five-five, with a boyish face and friendly hazel eyes behind gold-tone wire-framed glasses. He was wearing khaki Dockers, a V-necked navy sweater, and brown moccasins.

  “Professor Linney was walking near Highland and asked me to take him here,” I told the neighbor when he was at my side. “His daughter's out. Or maybe this isn't her house?”

  “It's her house.” The man sighed. “He's done this several times. I'll talk to him.”

  He approached Linney and laid his hand gently on his shoulder. “Professor, it's Tim Bolt from next door.”

  The old man faced him. “Can you phone Margaret and ask her to open the door? Something's wrong with the bell.”

  “Margaret's not here, Professor.”