11th Hour (Women's Murder Club 11)

“Can I get you a beer? Mind if I have one?”

Oliver was drinking at nine in the morning. What did he know? What had he done? He dragged a kitchen chair into the living room, and Conklin and I took turns throwing questions at him.

He told us that he had worked for Chandler since long before the trial. While Chandler was in the system, Oliver had taken a job in LA driving for a friend of Chandler, a TV producer. He’d come back to the Ellsworth compound when Chandler was acquitted.

He said he knew nothing about the severed heads except that it was creepy, and his vote for Most Likely to Commit Murder was Nigel Worley, although he couldn’t come up with a motive.

He also didn’t recognize our Jane Doe.

Oliver said good things about Chandler, how generous he was, how there was no way the movie star had ever killed anyone. He said Chandler’s only vices were women and nice things.

“He gave me this watch when he got tired of it,” Oliver said, showing off the seven-thousand-dollar Rolex.

I didn’t like Oliver, but was he a killer? I told him we’d be checking out his alibi and I gave him my card. He wanted us to leave so badly that I pushed back one more time.

“Mr. Oliver, if you had anything to do with this crime, you should tell us now, before it goes any further. My partner and I can help you. We can say that you came to us voluntarily.”

“No, no. I haven’t done anything like that. I came back from Vegas and saw all the cop cars outside the main house and thought, Aw, shit.

“Listen, I drove Mr. Chandler’s Bentley to Vegas. I’m not allowed to. I don’t want to get fired. Please don’t tell him. Check it out with the garage at the hotel. There’s a time-stamped record of the Bentley going in and out all weekend.”

I told Oliver we’d check out his story and that I wasn’t making any promises about what I would say to Chandler. I told him that if he had any thoughts about what happened inside the walled garden to call me any time.

“I have a thought right now. Do you know LaMetta Wynn?”

Chapter 42

LAMETTA WYNN WAS HARRY CHANDLER’S personal assistant. She lived in a small Victorian house in Golden Gate Heights, a residential neighborhood where everyone had his or her own patch of lawn and a porch overlooking the street.

Ms. Wynn was fifty or so, white, a fading redhead with sharp, pale eyes.

She asked us to come in, and we sat down in her living room. There were watercolor landscapes on the wall and a shotgun in a rack over the sofa. She answered our questions about her whereabouts, saying that she’d been alone all weekend.

“I got some sleep, caught up on e-mail, and was in touch with Harry Chandler. You know, he pays me a lot. He expects me to answer the phone when he calls.”

“Did he call you over the weekend?”

“In fact, he did. He was in Monterey. Wanted to get the names of some restaurants where he could take Kaye.”

“I understand that Mr. Chandler has an active social life.”

“I’m not going to tell you the names of Harry’s old girlfriends,” Wynn said. “Take it from me, there have been a lot of women, but Harry will be happy to give you names and dates, if you just ask him. I want to help you if I can. But I don’t know who could have done this — whatever this is.”

“All of the heads that were exhumed from the garden were female,” I said.

LaMetta Wynn sat back in her seat. She seemed to be thinking about that, then she said, “You’re the homicide detectives, so help me to understand. If Harry Chandler is the killer, why would he bury his victims’ heads in his own backyard?”

“I guess you’re assuming that killers are logical,” I said. I pulled out the drawing of Jane Doe, a drawing that was getting rumpled from handling.

Wynn got a glimpse, then seized the drawing from my hand.

“I know her,” she said. “I know this woman. Is she one of the people who was killed?”

“Yes. Who is she?”

“Her name is Marilyn. Varick, I think. She lives on the streets. Occasionally she sleeps in a doorway.

“I’ve given her spare change. She comes from Oregon,” said LaMetta Wynn. “I didn’t get into any long conversations with her. I mostly brought her soup.”