Grave on Grand Avenue Page 4

  “But you know what happened,” Nay continued. “Did Xu push that gardener down the stairs? I heard that he’s not doing well.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I have my sources.”

  “Nay, this is not a joke. You can’t be writing any of this right now.”

  “Did you meet him, by the way?”

  “Who?”

  “Xu. Oh my God, he is so damn cute. I could eat him up.”

  “I did see him.” Shoot, did I say that? Shut up, Ellie, I tell myself. “Oh, Nay, ah, I got to go, okay?”

  I end the call and take a deep breath. Crisis averted, right?

  Before I go back in, I set a Google Alert on Eduardo Fuentes, although I know it’s probably a pretty common name in both North and South America, not to mention Spain. I add Los Angeles and Disney Hall to limit the category.

  I turn around to see a tall redhead walk into the station, and get a closer look as I enter our lobby. The PR lady, Kendra Prescott, obviously here on some kind of mission.

  I try to keep my eyes down, like when you’re in class and don’t want to be called on. I’m almost safely out of the lobby when I hear Captain Randle call out from his office, “Officer Rush, could you join us, please?”

  Johnny’s already seated in the office. Captain Randle, his graying hair close-cropped, looks as intimidating and as dashing as ever, like that classic actor my father loves, Sidney Poitier. He’s dark-skinned like Poitier, and commands the same level of respect. In other words, we P2s are scared as hell of him. Johnny seems about as happy to be there as a dental patient waiting for his root canal.

  “I understand from Officer Mayhew that you are acquainted with Ms. Kendra Prescott from the concert hall,” Captain Randle says.

  “We’ve met,” I say.

  Kendra frowns slightly as if she can’t remember our previous encounter. What can I say? I must be pretty forgettable.

  “All I’m saying, Captain,” she continues where she apparently just left off, “is that it’s absolutely essential that we get that cello back. Today.”

  “As soon we get an expert to take a look at the cello to confirm its value as well as conduct a thorough examination, we’ll be returning it. It’s in a very secure place, believe you me.”

  “Xu’s already had to rehearse with another cello. But he says that he needs the Stradivarius. In addition to being an extraordinary instrument, it’s very special to him. An anonymous donor from China gave it to him while he was a conservancy student in Philadelphia. It’s always represented that his country believed in him. It’s really responsible for getting Xu through hard times.”

  Well, whoop-de-do, I think.

  “It seems as if you are very familiar with the cello’s history,” says Randle.

  Do I detect a touch of snark in Captain Randle’s tone?

  “I interviewed Xu about it for our program,” Kendra says, straightening her back in her chair. “He and his cello, in fact, are going to be the centerpiece of a special concert in China this week. So, you see, this is not only a matter of national significance, but also of international importance. I’m sure you don’t want the president involved in this.”

  I exchange glances with Johnny. Did she just say what I think she said? Did she just threaten to get the president, as in the president of the United States, involved?

  “Ms. Prescott, we are dealing with two serious issues here. One is possible attempted grand theft. The other, attempted murder. No politician can circumvent our legal system, especially during my watch.”

  “Attempted murder? That’s utterly ridiculous. Mr. Xu was just defending himself and a five-million-dollar cello from a thief.”

  “Do you think Mr. Fuentes, one of your employees, would be capable of such a thing?”

  “Well, he’s not officially an employee, more like an employee of a vendor. And you never know, right?” She turns to Johnny. “You were there; what do you think?”

  Johnny starts to stammer and I feel so bad for him.

  Kendra begins to frown and even Captain Randle seems a bit distressed. A police officer with a speech impediment? I know that Johnny’s been working on his issues with a speech therapist (she called the station once), though I haven’t mentioned anything to Johnny; hey, I’m part Japanese and know all about saving face.

  “Neither one of us saw clearly what was going on,” I break in. Both the captain and Johnny seemed relieved that I’ve interrupted. “Officer Mayhew was at the bottom of the stairs and I was in the restaurant at the time of Mr. Fuentes’s fall.”

  “Why else would Mr. Xu have a conflict with this man? It’s not like he knew him,” she says.

  “We do have a witness.”

  “The other gardener? She works with Eduardo. She’s probably just protecting him.” Still holding on to her phone, Kendra crosses her arms tightly around her chest. This meeting is obviously not going the way the she wants. She glances at her screen, and then reports to Captain Randle that she can give him the name of an appraiser for the cello. “He’s available right now.”

  Captain Randle seems skeptical.

  “Or do you have another string instrument expert that the LAPD uses on a regular basis?” Kendra has a point. She shares the screen with Captain Randle, who writes down the name of the expert and his phone number. “It’s Phoenix Instruments. In Arcadia.” Arcadia, home to not only the Santa Anita Racetrack and one of the biggest malls in San Gabriel Valley, but also the best Taiwanese dumplings in perhaps all of Southern California.

  “Okay, I’ll get on this, Ms. Prescott.” The captain then gives her one of his blinding smiles. “See what happens when you actually cooperate with police?”

  * * *

  As soon as my shift is over, I take off for a small rental car company that operates out of a hotel in Little Tokyo. Even though I can manage LA via bike and public transportation, my friends are right—I do need some new wheels. But I’ve never bought a car before. I’ll need some time to research, compare, test-drive. Since my insurance doesn’t cover a temporary replacement for a stolen car, I go for the cheapest option. Economy. And yeah, you get what you pay for, because I get a Hyundai Accent. And get this—it’s Kermit the Frog green. My friends will not be happy.

  Since it’s dinnertime, I park Kermit a couple of blocks away in the lot across from Osaka’s. My phone begins to vibrate in my pocket, and I pull it out and see that Google Alerts is telling me that something has been posted about Eduardo Fuentes/Los Angeles/Disney Hall.

  It’s an article by Nay in the Citrus Squeeze digital edition. I feel sick to my stomach. Surprisingly, the article is fair and factual, or as factual as Nay can be given the lack of information that’s been provided to her. But one quote attributed to an anonymous police source will undoubtedly be linked back to me. She’s included a statement from Fuentes’s daughter, which is pretty damning. The nephew, although he was on the scene, is not mentioned.

  As I enter Osaka’s, I’m relieved that Nay’s not here yet. It’s only Rickie sitting there at our table. He’s stuffing his face with boiled edamame, a bowl overflowing with empty pods in front of him. The edamame are free at Osaka’s, and when money is tight, Rickie takes full advantage.

  I sink in a nearby chair and sigh, my helmet in my lap.

  “Bad day?” he asks, sucking on the end of a soybean pod.

  “Don’t tell Nay, okay?”

  Rickie raises his eyebrows and leans forward. He’s always ready for some juicy gossip. “My lips are sealed.” Yeah, right. I should know better, but I’m desperate to talk to someone.

  “You heard about the thing with that Chinese cellist?”

  “Oh, Xu?”

  Of course, Rickie would keep tabs on beautiful Asian men. And he knows how to pronounce it right.

  “Well, it’s becoming a bit of an international incident.”
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  “You mean his dad did kill that Latino gardener?”

  “He’s still alive,” I murmur, feeling so bad for the Fuentes family. I get a familiar pang, the memory of feeling helpless while waiting in that hospital room during Mom’s breast cancer surgery. “Anyway, the PR person came by the police station today.”

  “What for?”

  “She wants Xu’s cello back for tonight’s performance. She says it’s worth five million dollars.”

  A soybean falls from Rickie’s mouth. “Does that come with the cellist?”

  “No, without Xu.”

  “Well, that’s a bloody shame.”

  I do a double take at Rickie’s use of bloody. Is he going Downton Abbey on me?

  “Hey—” Nay walks into the restaurant toward our table.

  Rickie gives Nay the once-over. She’s wearing a silver knit dress and ankle boots with killer heels. (They would definitely kill me.) “Who’s the new guy?” he asks.

  “What?” Nay hangs her purse over one of the empty chairs at our table.

  “Mascara, eyeliner—and are those falsies?”

  “Dude, this girl don’t need no boob enhancements.” Nay sashays her ample cleavage. Yeah, I admit it. I’m a bit jealous.

  “I’m talking about the eyes. False eyelashes. You have a date.”

  “Oh.” Nay blinks three times fast, and I finally notice the black wedges glued to her eyelids. “Well, kind of. It’s with someone who can do it for twenty minutes straight.”

  “Nay!” I exclaim.

  “Girl, can’t you take a joke? I’m talking about that cellist Xu and his playing. I’m going to his concert tonight.”

  “Really?” That thing must have been sold out for months. Plus a ticket would probably set someone back at least a hundred dollars.

  Nay immediately reads my expression. (Yeah, I’m pretty much an open book. I have to work on that if I really want to make homicide detective and interview suspects.) She flashes her press pass, her LAPD one. “The power of the press.”

  Pulling the laminated pass toward him, Rickie studies her photo and her physical description. “You haven’t weighed a hundred and forty since middle school.”

  “Get out of here.” Nay gnashes her teeth at Rickie. She then smiles sweetly at me. “You wanna be my plus-one?”

  THREE

  I agree to go to the concert. It’s not that I’m eager to hear classical music after a long day, but I need to keep tabs on Nay. Now that the station knows she’s connected to me, I have to make sure that she doesn’t do anything to impede the investigation. I’m also super-curious about the cello—is it back in Xu’s hands? And if not, will it affect his performance in any way?

  The only problem is what I’m wearing, since I came from work. There’s no time for me to go home and change, though, so my uniform, shorts and all, will have to do.

  Since I have my rental car, I agree to drop Rickie off at PPW before Nay and I head out. As I suspected, the reaction to my wheels is not good.

  Rickie and Nay stare in shock at the Hyundai for a moment. “What’s with you and the color green? Did some leprechaun mess around with your mom?” Rickie folds his long legs as he gets into the backseat. It’s so cramped, his Mohawk brushes against the roof of the car.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think it’s worse than the Green Mile,” Nay says.

  “I’m not buying it, okay? I’m just renting it until I get something.”

  “You’re doing it to torture us,” Rickie adds.

  “Listen, Rickie, you don’t have to ride in it. The Metro bus is a very nice shade of red.”

  “Well, let’s not go there.”

  I start up the engine and pull out of my spot in the parking lot. Once I’ve merged onto First Street, I finally ask, “Where’s Benjamin, anyway?”

  “Not sure.” Rickie tries to hide his concern. I have a theory that he’s crushing on Benjamin; I mean, my ex’s whole scruffy look—his longish hair and plaid shirts—has broken many a heart, including mine.

  “He’s been MIA a lot. I mean a lot.” Nay flips down the flimsy car visor and applies a fresh coat of gloss on her already painted lips. She then attempts to pretty me up, but I wave her off. First of all, I’m driving, and besides, I’m in my uniform and bicycle shorts—some lipstick isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference.

  “You’d think that he’s hiding a new girl, but I don’t get that vibe,” says Rickie.

  “What kind of ‘vibe’ are you getting, then?” I say with a sprinkle of snark.

  “He’s been kinda emo lately. I mean, not suicidal, but a little dark.”

  I start to feel worried. What was it that Benjamin had wanted to tell me about yesterday? I remind myself to text him tonight after the concert.

  Abruptly, Rickie blurts, “You can drop me off here.” I’m stopped at a red light in front of a mini-mall with a photocopy place. “Sorry, I just can’t be seen in this thing. I have a reputation to uphold.” He pops out with his backpack, barely even waving good-bye.

  I feel like an unappreciated soccer mom and promptly give him the finger.

  “I don’t think he saw that,” Nay says.

  “Sometimes . . .” I say to Nay in a threatening voice, leaving the rest of the sentence unfinished. “Sometimes.”

  “Yeah, but if we don’t love him, who will?”

  Once I circle around the hall for the garage, I find a spot on the bottom floor of the parking lot, thankful for the truly compact size of the Hyundai. We then enter the building, riding at least three sets of escalators before reaching the expansive lobby. I see plenty of concertgoers here in jeans and T-shirts, which makes me feel a little less self-conscious. This is LA, after all, where you’ll find someone in an evening gown in the same room as someone in yoga pants. In the lobby, I spy a guy my dad’s age who’s trying to look like Bono in blue wraparound sunglasses; I’d say that’s a worse fashion crime than what I’m wearing.

  Nay checks in at a media table, while I pick up a free program.

  “It was cool to meet the flaks in person,” Nay says when she rejoins me, studying her press package as if she knows what she’s doing.

  Back at the media table, I spy a couple of women, including one with a familiar red ponytail. “What’s a flak?”

  “You know, a public relations person. That’s what the media call them.”

  So that would be Kendra Prescott. A flak. “Sounds nasty.”

  Nay shrugs her shoulders, like she’s completely transformed into some hard-core journalist. She’s wearing her press pass around her neck. I fight the urge to mention that we’re at a classical music concert, hardly Pulitzer Prize–winning material.

  “Too bad we missed the preconcert lecture,” Nay says.

  “Oh, it’s Don Quixote,” I say, glancing at the cover of the program for the first time. I majored in Spanish at Pan Pacific College and we tackled excerpts from Cervantes’s novel in one of my classes. I’m immediately more interested in the concert now. “I actually know this story.”

  “It’s some Dutch thing, right? Has something to do with windmills.”

  “Not Dutch, Nay. Spanish. It’s, like, the most important piece of Spanish literature. Don Quixote, the hero, is this guy who’s really into being chivalrous, like a knight or something from the old days. But then he slowly starts to lose his mind, thinking that windmills are giants he has to fight.”

  “Wow, he was really tripping out,” Nay comments.

  “Oh, you’d like his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza. He’s a simple farmer, really . . . earthy.”

  “Hey, what are you trying to say? That I’m Panza? I’m your wacky but slow wingman?”

  “I didn’t say that! Besides, Quixote’s the one who goes crazy at the end.”

  “Hello, spoiler alert.” Nay seems genuinely tic
ked that I’ve given away the ending.

  “It’s not like it’s a big secret, Nay. This is a classic, like Romeo and Juliet, not some TV show, like who got the rose on The Bachelor.”

  “So are you going to ruin that one for me, too?”

  Is she kidding? I sigh. “Where are we sitting anyway?”

  Nay glances at the tickets the PR person gave her. “Balcony. Row C.”

  Nay seems to realize that our seats are less than premium as we climb one staircase after another. I bet the LA Times music critic isn’t sitting way up in the clouds like we will be. But as Grandma Toma likes to say, beggars can’t be choosers. In other words, Ellie, I tell myself, give your girl Nay a break.

  The carpet and the seats are dark red with patterns of orange and green. They are abstract flowers, designed in honor of Walt Disney’s wife, Lillian, a horticultural lover who pretty much championed the whole concert hall, though she didn’t live to see it completed. I can still remember some of the details from the tour my family took back when this place opened.

  And since the hall isn’t shaped like a cube, oval, or any typical shape you learn about in grade school, the hallways are mazelike. I usually pride myself on my good sense of direction, but I’m certain that I could lose my way in here.

  We finally reach the top and discover our seats are about three rows from the back.

  “I guess I should have RSVP’d earlier,” mutters Nay, fingering her laminated press pass.

  There are already some people sitting in our row, so we try to squeeze past their knees to our seats. Nay’s ample behind presses against the laps of the seated senior citizens. A woman wearing a heavy turquoise necklace frowns, but her male companion doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Man, it’s tight in here,” Nay comments.

  “You think?”

  Once we are planted in our nosebleed seats, we take in the scene in front of us. The orchestra is already onstage, looking like toy dolls from up here. All wearing black, they casually chat with their neighbors while tuning their instruments.