Authors: Sue Ann Jaffarian
AFTER TAKING TWO days off, I had plenty of mail and work piled up. Mr. Wallace had begun a two-week vacation the day before and had left e-mails and notes with instructions on the few things he had pending. We had already spoken by phone this morning. He and his wife were concerned about me, he had said, knowing what a shock Sophie's death must have been. He encouraged me to take more time off if I needed it. I would miss this man when he retired.
After opening and sorting my mail, neatly stacking it into various piles—to be filed, to be distributed, needs attention, urgent—I looked up the phone number for the local branch of the security company. Since it was the same company that operated my alarm system, I knew there was an office just a few miles away. I found it easily in the phone book. It was on Baker, not far from my office, which was located in a highrise across from South Coast Plaza, one of the largest shopping malls in the United States.
Greg had been successful in reaching the alarm company's customer service department. He had called the night before to tell me that the alarm company did, in fact, have a record of a service call at Sophie's on Sunday. They would not give him the name of the service technician, just his supervisor's name and the branch telephone number. The number matched the one in the phone book for the office located on Baker.
I called the security company and spoke with the supervisor, a Bill Walker. I asked if I could stop by at lunch time for just a few minutes. Like all assistants and most paralegals at Woobie, my desk was housed in a cubicle, open and unshielded from prying eyes and ears. It made it impossible to discuss this matter from here. I told Mr. Walker that the matter was confidential, about a friend of mine, Sophia London. He immediately recognized the name and consented, asking if I could come by about eleven-thirty.
The morning sped by as I caught up on accumulated voice mails and e-mails, returning and noting each one. Mike Steele walked by, making a big point of ignoring me. It was his way of expressing his displeasure at my time off. At eleven-fifteen I told the receptionist I was leaving for an appointment and headed off to meet Mr. Walker.
The corporate offices of the alarm company were located in Pasadena. They also had several branch offices located throughout Southern California, each one housing sales, installation, service, and patrol functions. The Baker Street office served most of Orange County and was located in a large end section of a nondescript strip mall. There was a small customer parking area in the front of the light gray stucco single-story building. I pulled my car into a space and got out. There was a larger parking area at the end of the building reserved for company vehicles and employees. A couple of patrol cars and small trucks bearing the company logo were parked there, as well as about a dozen private vehicles.
Inside the small reception area, the office was plain and sparse. The walls were adorned with publicity posters showing either burglars in action or smiling patrolmen and guards. Brochures on services and equipment were neatly arranged in holders. It was easy to see that this office didn't receive a lot of walk-in customers. Security companies do most of their marketing through ads and telemarketing, with salesmen making in-home appointments to present and close deals.
The receptionist was separated from the waiting area by a wall with a window, like in a doctor's office. The young woman behind the closed glass opening was seated slightly lower than the window and engrossed in her work. I tapped lightly on the window to get her attention.
I asked the receptionist for Mr. Walker and was immediately escorted through the inside door and down a short hallway to a small private office. The plaque on the door read W. Walker, Operations Manager in straight plain letters of white embossed on a brown background. There were a few other offices along the hallway with similar plaques bearing different names.
Mr. Walker was on the phone when I came in. He waved hello and indicated for me to sit down in a chair opposite his cluttered desk. There was a huge bulletin board on one of his walls, the cork surface all but obliterated with push pins holding memos, graphs and messages. On the wall nearest me was an equally large white board with lines drawn in a grid. Names and times were entered into boxes on each line, clearly indicating a schedule of some kind. Among the debris on the desk were a dirty coffee cup, a crumpled McDonald's bag, and several framed photos of children of various ages. As soon as Mr. Walker got off the call, the phone rang again. He answered, said a few words and hung up. Then he called the receptionist and told her to hold his calls. Finally, with words of apology, he was all mine. He stood up, offered me a callused hand, and told me to call him Bill.
Bill Walker was a black man on the far side of forty, with a wide smile and crooked teeth. Both his head and his face were clean shaven and each ear lobe bore a tiny gold hoop. He was average in size, but the soft round tire around his middle told me that he was prone to gaining weight easily. The white knit shirt he wore was similar in style to the ones worn at Olsen's Machinery, but the logo over his left breast was different.
"You're here about that London woman?" he asked after pleasantries. His voice was medium in tone, with a bit of a smoker's rasp to it. The faint smell of smoke coming from his clothing confirmed my guess.
"Yes," I said. "She was a friend of mine."
"I'm very sorry."
"Thank you." I took a piece of paper from my tote bag. It was a document Doug Hemming, Sophie's lawyer, had given me. I showed it to Bill Walker. "I'm also her personal representative. You know, the person in charge of closing down her affairs."
He gave me a warm but ragged smile. "You didn't need to come down in person to close her account. You can just call customer service. They have procedures for such cases."
"I know. I'm one of your customers as well. But I'm not here for that. In fact we're going to keep the alarm system operating until the house is sold and the new owners come in."
"Good idea. Don't need vandals trashing the place." He leaned back comfortably in his chair. "So then, Odelia, if this isn't about Ms. London's account, what can we help you with?"
"Well, this is going to sound strange, but Sophie's neighbor has been complaining..."
He immediately leaned forward and held up a hand halting me. "Iris Somers," he said in a deadpan voice, followed by a deep sigh. "Do you have any idea how annoying that woman can be?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I do." I gave him a sympathetic smile. "She said one of your service people stopped by the house the weekend Sophie died."
"Yeah, that was Danny Ortiz." Bill leaned back in his chair again. "Ever since that system was put in, that crazy neighbor of your friend's has been calling us about some damn beams. We've explained to her 'til we're blue in the face that our system does not utilize harmful beams that travel around and hurt people. I've told her myself."
"I understand. But why the service call? Did Sophie request it?"
"No, she didn't. Seems this Somers woman sent letters to the big mucky mucks of the company complaining about these stupid beams. It was the legal department's idea to send a technician out there. You know, just to document that we did look into the problem in case anything comes up later."
It seemed logical to me. The company was covering its ass in the event Iris filed a formal, albeit bogus, complaint.
"Did this Danny see Sophie either of those days?"
"Like I told the police," Bill said slowly and with deliberation, "he first went out on Saturday between calls. Since it wasn't a standard service request, we decided to try and fit it into the schedule when we had time. Your friend wasn't home, so he went back on Sunday morning before his first call, which was nearby. Danny alternates working weekends with other techs. That was his weekend on call."
"The police knew Danny had been there?" I asked, surprised. I distinctly remembered Iris Somers saying she hadn't had the chance to tell the cops that.
"Sure. Whenever there's a security system present, they contact the company about possible triggering of the alarm, or calls to us. It's standard procedure. They found out Danny had been there and stopped by to talk to him."
"This suicide took us all by surprise, Bill." I shifted in my chair and leaned closer, not wanting to miss a crumb of information. "So what I'd really like to know is what was Sophie like that weekend? How was she acting? Your technician might have been the last person to see her alive, if he saw her."
"He did see her." Bill's face turned somber as he spoke.
He pulled a cigarette package from the middle desk drawer and tapped out a single slim, white cylinder. He played with it, rolling it between his fingers. I could tell he was dying to light up.
"I read about your friend in the news," Bill told me. "We like to keep up on things involving our customers. If the witnesses were correct about the time of death, then Danny saw her less than an hour before she pulled the trigger. Danny's a young guy, about the same age as my eldest, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. He's a sensitive kid and took it pretty hard. He kept wondering if there was something he should've noticed, could've prevented. Kept saying to me that he should've spent more time there, instead of a quick courtesy in and out."
"But he did see her?" I was excited about the news, yet sorry about the boy's trauma.
"Yes, and spoke to her. Then he checked the system. It was working fine, so he left and filed his report. He told me that she seemed okay when he saw her. Cheerful, in fact." He checked his watch. "Would you like to talk to Danny? He's doing a job not far from here, a condo off of MacArthur. He may be at lunch right now."
"Sure, I'd appreciate that, if it's no trouble."
Bill picked up a small handheld radio. "No problem," he said to me. "Glad to help. I think it'll help Danny, too, to talk to someone who knew the woman."
While he tried to reach Danny Ortiz, I checked my time. It was noon. MacArthur was just on the other side of the mall, near my office. I could swing by, have a few words with Ortiz and buzz back to work. Perfect.
"Funny, he's not answering," Bill said and tried again.
The receptionist came dashing in. "Bill, I'm sorry, but the police are on the phone. They say it's an emergency."
He immediately put down the radio. When the receptionist sent the call through to his telephone, he punched the line. I made a motion I'd wait outside and he nodded.
I sat in the waiting area for about fifteen minutes. There seemed to be a lot commotion going on in the back office behind the separating door. Obviously, something big had happened. I decided to go. Ortiz could wait until tomorrow.
I walked up to the receptionist and tapped on the window, thinking I'd leave Bill a message that I'd call him later. The young woman behind the glass was crying.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," I said to her.
"Oh, my God," she said, looking at me as if I were a ghost. "I think Bill forgot you were here!" She dashed back down the hallway.
A few minutes later Bill Walker came through the door. He clutched the cigarette pack tightly in one hand. His face was ashen, his eyes red-rimmed. He opened the front door and motioned for me to follow him out. As soon as we were outside, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, right down to his toes. He offered me one, but I declined. He took several long drags before he said anything.
"Danny Ortiz is dead," he announced bluntly and quietly.
"What?" I couldn't believe it. Non-smoker be damned...suddenly, I wanted a smoke, too.
Bill took several more deep pulls off his cigarette, finishing it in short order. He dropped the butt to the ground and mashed it under his heavy work shoe. Promptly, he pulled out another and lit up again.
"About an hour ago according to the police," he said after exhaling. "Seems Danny was hit by a drunk driver as he was getting into his truck. He was killed instantly. They've arrested the asshole who did it. Some executive named Thomas—Glenn Thomas, I think. Drunk probably. Most of them are." He coughed a deep, ugly cough and took another big drag off his cigarette.
I squeezed out an inadequate condolence, then started silently crying. Bill Walker touched my shoulder gently.
"Who knows why this shit happens. Danny, your friend. No matter how many people close to us we lose, we never get used to it. Do we?"
He dropped his second butt to the ground and snuffed it out like the first.
"I have to get going," he told me. "The police want me at the scene as soon as possible. I'm sorry you'll never get what you came for." Fighting back tears, he put a hand over his eyes and squeezed gently. "Damn! He was such a good kid."
I held out my hand to Bill Walker. We shook.
"Thank you, Bill. You've been a big help. And, again, I am truly sorry about Danny Ortiz."
I DIDN'T DRIVE back to the office. And I didn't feel like going home. Pulling out my cell phone, I called Woobie, leaving a voice mail for the office manager saying my appointment was taking much longer than I had planned and I would need to take a half-day off.
Ortiz' death was too much of a coincidence for me to swallow. But they did have the drunk who'd killed him, so it wasn't like it was premeditated murder. And who knew about Danny Ortiz anyway? As far as I knew, only Iris Somers, Greg, and I knew about the service technician's visit. And, of course, the police. But only I had his name. Greg had said the security company wouldn't release it to him over the phone.
If Danny Ortiz was murdered, if the accident was really a hit to get him out the way, then there were only two possibilities that I could see. Either Greg did find out the name and lied to me, which meant he was back on the suspects list. Or Sophie's murderer was at her house when Ortiz arrived. I prayed for the latter.
I finally decided to drive to Zee's house, hoping to find her at home. She was. I told her about Ortiz.
"You're getting in way over your head," she said when I finished talking. "You know that, don't you?" Her tone was scolding, her look concerned.
I said nothing, just fiddled with the glass of lemonade she'd given me. Lifting up the heavy tumbler, I rolled it across my forehead. The cool, wet drops on the outside of the glass felt wonderful against my warm skin and aching head.
She picked up her phone and handed it to me. "I think it's time to call Detective Frye."