An excerpt from Disappeared to Death

Where has the summer gone? Between traveling, watching the Olympics obsessively, and a mild case of Covid, I’ve almost completely missed it. Kids here go back to school next Monday!

Here’s an unedited chapter from the next Angeles Investigations book, Disappeared to Death, Angeles #4. Publication will be in September; you’ll get plenty of notice.

Kristen

Holmby Hills

Saturday, June 1

The Holmby Hills section of LA was less well known than its neighbors Beverly Hills and Bel Air, but plenty of entertainment figures and other wealthy people had lived there over the years. Despite the fact that Sunset Boulevard ran right through the center of it, it was almost entirely residential. 

Kristen had been to plenty of parties in Holmby Hills when she was married to her first husband, a neurosurgeon named Daniel Corbin. But she’d never been to Graham Kirtley and Kent Fisher’s house. She knew the couple had been together for years; she also remembered that they’d bought this house together while she was going through her divorce from Daniel. Graham, her divorce attorney, had mentioned it at some point.

Even though she knew that Graham and Kent were wealthy, she was still surprised at the size of their house. An estate, almost, on what must be an acre lot. Kevin looked over at her, amused. “I guess you helped pay for this.”

“No way. I might have paid for the exterior paint.”

He laughed. “Wait ‘til you see the back.”

“That’s right, I keep forgetting that you’ve been here before.”

“Under less pleasant circumstances.” Kevin and his then-partner, Jon Eckhoff, had been the detectives who investigated the murder that took place during Kent and Graham’s wedding.

“Yeah. That was around the time you and I started dating.”

“Almost exactly.”

Kevin parked beside Ryan’s vintage Ford Bronco, and they met the rest of the group at the front of the house, where Ali was arranging everyone in work groups.

Kevin had known Ali since they were both toddlers. She was Jamie’s age, 44, and the two of them had gone all the way from kindergarten through high school together. Ali had attended UC-Davis to major in landscape architecture. After graduation, Ali and her then-girlfriend, Melanie Hayes, had moved to LA so that Mel could attend UCLA’s law school. Ali went to work for a landscaping company then finally saved enough money to strike out on her own. 

At first, Cactus Flower Xeriscaping consisted of Ali and a pickup truck full of tools. But, as California’s drought deepened, xeriscaping became more popular, and Ali’s business grew. Now she employed eleven people full-time, all women except for Drew Jemison, and had to occasionally turn down jobs because she didn’t have time to complete them by the deadline that the property owner demanded.

Kristen hadn’t met Ali until after she met Kevin, but they’d quickly become friends. And Mel Hayes, now Ali’s wife, was Kristen and Kevin’s lawyer.

Ali said, “All right, everyone’s here! Thanks so much for coming. First, some logistics. Graham and Kent aren’t home, but they’ve given me the key to their pool house. The bathroom is in there, and there’s a fridge which I filled up with bottled water and, for the Brodie contingent, Cokes.”

Everyone laughed. Kevin and Jamie’s love for Coke Classic was widely known. 

“You’ll see paving stones already placed in shapes. We have a diagram to indicate which kind of rock goes in which shape.” There were a dozen huge mounds of different styles and colors of decorative stones resting on the dirt near the house. Two mounds consisted of mulch.

 Ali continued. “Outside the shapes, we’ll be using the Mexican beach pebbles. The mulch goes around the base of the plantings. We won’t spread mulch until we’re done planting, obviously, and we won’t spread the Mexican beach pebbles until we’re done filling in the other shapes. I’ve assigned each of you from Angeles to work with one of my team. If you have any questions, they can answer them.”

Rob said, “Let’s get at this.”

“All right! Here’s how we’re paired. Rob, you’re with Kimmie.”

Kimmie was a short but solidly built woman with a gray crewcut. She grinned at Rob. “We’re gonna have fun, mister.”

Rob grinned back. “Absolutely.”

“Aaron, you’re with Angie. Pete, you’re with Gretchen. Jamie, you’re with Breanna. Ryan, you’re with Bella. Brad, you’re with Summer. Kevin, you’re with Janie. Kristen, you’re with Cobie.”

Cobie was probably in her late thirties, with green hair in a pixie cut. She moved to Kristen’s side and said, “We’re going to plant.”

“Oh, good. Better than hauling rocks.”

Cobie nodded. “Exactly. We got the best job.”

Ali continued. “Shanelle, Sophia, Drew and I will be filling wheelbarrows for y’all. Any questions?”

Pete, Jamie, Aaron, and Kristen all said, “Nope.”

“All right. Let’s get started.”

The teams scattered after conferring with the schematics. Cobie handed Kristen a shovel then led her to the far side of the property. “The plants are already placed where they go, so all we have to do is dig the hole and plant it. We’ll drag the hose after us to give them a good watering once they’re in the ground.”

“Sounds good.” Kristen frowned at the small tree in front of her. “What is this?”

“Crape myrtle. Highly drought- and heat-tolerant. The homeowners demanded that as many of the plants as possible be flowering, so most of what we’re planting today are crape myrtles, flowering cacti, and several varieties of sedum and sage.”

Kristen smiled. “Sounds like what I have in my yard.”

Cobie smiled back. “Very wise.”

Kristen tugged her gloves on. “Let’s get started.”

By mid-day, Cobie and Kristen had planted nearly a third of the property. Ryan, Brad, and their planting partners had nearly completed the other two-thirds. They broke for lunch – Ali ordered subs from a nearby deli – then went to finish the job. 

Kristen and Cobie had taken turns digging. They were working in the lower corner of the front yard, close to the street, where a privacy hedge lined the fence surrounding the property and a couple of trees in the next-door neighbor’s yard provided shade. 

It was Kristen’s turn to dig. Since the crape myrtles already had well-established root balls, the hole needed to be about two feet deep. Kristen was nearly there when her shovel struck something that made an odd clunk sound. She stopped. “What was that?”

Steve Snodgrass, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cobie frowned. “I don’t know. Didn’t sound like a rock.”

“Could it be a sprinkler line?”

“No. We tore those out.”

Kristen knelt and brushed soil away from what she’d struck. It was off-white and slightly rounded. Cobie knelt on the other side of the hole. “What is that?”

Kristen was afraid she knew exactly what it was. She flicked away a couple more handfuls of soil to reveal the answer to Cobie’s question.

Cobie fell back on her butt at the sight of the eye sockets. “Fucking hell! Is that a skull?”

“Sure looks like it.” Kristen stood up. She didn’t see Kevin or Rob anywhere – they were probably working in the backyard – but the third ex-cop on the scene, Pete, was up by the house, accepting a wheelbarrow full of stones from Drew. She hollered, “Pete!”

He looked around then saw her waving. He said something to Drew then trotted down the hill to her. “What’s wrong?”

Cobie had scrambled to her feet and had backed up until she was about five yards away from the hole. Kristen pointed. “We have a problem.”

“Oh, shit.” Pete knelt by the hole. “Were you using your glove to brush the dirt?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me have it. We need to make sure it’s human.” Pete took her right glove and finished uncovering the face of the skull.

It was definitely human. Pete stood up with a sigh. “Cobie, please go tell Ali to have everyone stop what they’re doing and stay put.” He pulled out his phone and dialed 911.