Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“Congratulations.”

“We’ll miss her,” said Grace Monahan. “She’s quite remarkable.”

“I’ll bet.”

“If you’d like to pay your respects before she leaves, that can be arranged.”

“Appreciate the offer,” I said. “If you don’t mind, could we talk a bit about Dr. Asherwood?”

“What, in particular, would you like to know?”

“Anything you can tell me about him. And if you’re familiar with a woman he knew named Eleanor Green, that would be extremely helpful.”

“Well,” she said, “this is a person we’re going to discuss and that deserves a more personal setting than the phone, don’t you think? Why don’t you drop by tomorrow morning, say eleven? Where are you located?”

“Beverly Glen.”

“We’re not far at all, here’s the address.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Monahan.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Board seats and ownership of a multimillion-dollar show car had led me to expect residence in Beverly Hills’ uppermost echelons. A manse at the northern edge of the flats, or one of the mammoth estates nestled in the hillocks above Sunset.

The address Grace Monahan gave me was on South Rodeo Drive, a pleasant but low-key neighborhood well away from the try-too-hard glitz and glassy-eyed tourism of the twenty-four-karat shopping district.

The numbers matched a nondescript, two-story, not-quite-Colonial apartment building on a block of similar structures, shadowed by the white marble monument on Wilshire that was Saks Fifth Avenue.

Monahan: 2A . A once-wealthy couple who’d fallen on hard times? The real reason for selling the blue Duesenberg?

I climbed white-painted concrete steps to a skimpy landing ringed by three units. The wooden door to 2A was open but blocked by a screen door. No entry hall meant a clear view into a low, dim living room. Music and the smell of coffee blew through the mesh. Two people sat on a tufted floral sofa. The woman got up and unlatched the screen.

“Doctor? Grace.”

Five and a half feet tall in spangled ballet slippers, Grace Monahan wore a peach-colored velvet jumpsuit and serious gold jewelry at all the pressure points. Her hair was subtly hennaed, thick and straight, reaching an inch below her shoulder blades. Her makeup was discreet, highlighting clear, wide brown eyes. The Pebble Beach photo was a decade old but she hadn’t aged visibly. Nothing to do with artifice; smile lines and crow’s-feet abounded, along with the inevitable loosening of flesh that either softens a face or blurs it, depending on self-esteem at seventy.

The duration and warmth of Grace Monahan’s smile said life was just grand in her eighth decade. One of those women who’d been a knockout from birth and had avoided addiction to youth.

She took my hand and drew me inside. “Do come in. Some coffee? We get ours from Santa Fe, it’s flavored with pinon, if you haven’t tried it, you must.”

“I’ve had it, am happy to repeat the experience.”

“You know Santa Fe?”

“Been there a couple of times.”

“We winter there because we love clean snow-have a seat, please. Anywhere is fine.”

Anywhere consisted of a pair of brocade side chairs or the floral sofa where her husband remained planted as he continued watching a financial show on the now muted TV. Still canted away from me, he gave an obligatory wave.

Grace Monahan said, “Felix.”

He quarter-turned. “Sorry, just a second.”

“Felix?”

“A sec, sweetie, I want to see what Buffett’s up to, now that he’s a celebrity.”

“You and Buffett.” Grace Monahan completed the three steps required to transition to a tiny kitchenette. She fiddled with a drip percolator.

I sat there as Felix Walker Monahan attended to stock quotes scrolling along the bottom of the screen. Above the numbers, a talking head ranted mutely about derivatives. Watching without sound didn’t seem to bother Felix Monahan. Maybe he was a good lip-reader. The same tolerance applied to TV reception that turned to snow every few moments. The set was a convex-screened RCA in a case the size of a mastiff’s doghouse. Topped by rabbit ears.

The room was warm, slightly close, filled with well-placed furniture, old, not antique. Three small paintings on the walls: two florals and a soft-focus portrait of a beautiful, round-faced child. Great color and composition and the signature was the same; if these were real Renoirs, they could finance another show car.

The blowhard on the screen pointed to a graph, loosened his tie, continued to vent. Felix Walker Monahan chuckled.

His wife said, “What can you get out of it without hearing it?”

“Think of it as performance art, sweetie.” He switched off, swiveled toward me.

Unlike his wife, he’d changed a lot since Pebble Beach: smaller, paler, less of a presence. Scant white hair was combed back from a wrinkled-paper visage that would’ve looked good under a powdered wig or gracing coinage. He wore a gray silk shirt, black slacks, gray-black-checked Converse sneakers sans socks. The skin of his ankles was dry, chafed, lightly bruised. His hands vibrated with minor palsy.

He said, “Jimmy Asherwood, fine man. Better than fine, first-rate.”

“Did you buy the Duesenberg from him?”

He grinned. “Even better, he gave it to us. To Gracie, actually. She was his favorite niece, I lucked out. When I met her I knew nothing about cars or much else. Jimmy’s collection was quite the education.”

His wife said, “I was his favorite niece because I was his only niece. My father was Jack Asherwood, Jimmy’s older brother. Jimmy was the doctor, Dad was the lawyer.”

Felix said, “If Jimmy had twenty nieces, you’d still be his favorite.”

“Oh, my.” She laughed. “I already give you everything you want, why bother?”

“Keeping in practice for when you finally say no.”

“Scant chance-here’s coffee.”

“Let me help you,” he said.

“Don’t you dare be getting up.”

“Oh, boy,” he said. “Starting to feel like a cripple.”

“The difference, Felix, is that cripples remain crippled while you can be up and around soon enough. If you follow orders.”

“Hear, hear,” he said. To me: “Had surgery five weeks ago. You don’t want to know the details.”

Grace said, “He certainly doesn’t .”

“Let’s just say plumbing issues and leave it at that.”

“Felix.”

He rotated his arm. “They cored and bored me, like an engine. Roto-Rooter wasn’t picking up their messages so I had to go to a urologist.”

“ Fee-lix! TMI.”

“What’s that mean, sweetie?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, young man. The grandkids always say it when you’re overdoing.”

“Ah,” he said. “Too Many Issues.”

“Exactly.” She brought a silver tray holding three coffees and a box of cookies. “Pepperidge Farm Milano Mints, Doctor. Cream?”

“Black’s fine.”

Pouring, she sat down next to her husband. They lifted their cups but waited until I’d sipped.

I said, “Delicious. Thanks.”

Felix said, “Here’s to another day aboveground.”

“So dramatic,” said Grace, but her voice caught.

I said, “Nice paintings.”

“They’re all we have room for, I don’t like crowding, art needs room to breathe.” She sipped. “In Santa Fe we have oodles of wall space but not being there much of the year we don’t like to hang anything too serious.”

“In S.F., we patronize the local artists,” said Felix. “Nice level of talent but not much in the way of investment.”

“Life’s about more than compound interest, dear.”

“So you keep telling me.”

I said, “Have you lived here long?”