I said, “His public persona was fine, private not so much.”
“Exactly. Get alone with him, sooner or later he’s making a move and being pushy about it. Maybe a pain in the ass. Literally, based on what Briggs and Candace Kierstead told us, but so far no one’s complained. Onward…Number Seven, another nurse, said it wasn’t that Gurnsey dispensed with the niceties like a lot of guys, on the contrary he could be a total gentleman. But eventually he’d show his entitlement by…‘Ricky could be holding the door open for you and kissing your fingertips one minute, then he’d want to put you up against a wall and jam it in and assume you wanted it as much as he did. But he did take no for an answer.’ Again, no animosity. More like a game she didn’t want to play. She’s the oldest, forty-four, told me she’d been married twice, didn’t want to have to ‘deal with another guy’s issues.’ ”
He turned to the second page. “Nurse Number Three. The least recent, four dates with Gurnsey five months ago. Gurnsey was ‘cute and okay but a little pushy when it came to sex. We didn’t mesh.’ She works at Cedars so I asked Rick and he knows her. Straight shooter, lovely, no way she could be involved in anything like this.”
He tapped the list. “Now the two I want to meet soon. Nine is the other lawyer, a woman named Joan Blunt. Works at a B.H. firm. Haven’t been able to talk to her yet, got blocked by her secretary, no call-back after three tries and that twangs the antenna. She’s the second oldest, forty-one, and if her Instagram page is accurate, she looks like a movie star. She’s also ahem married to another legal eagle, one kid, nice house in Encino. Which gives me a motive. Like you said, a jealous hubby. But also like you said, why kill three other people? She and Gurnsey exchanged a dozen calls, always at night, with some of the conversations lasting ten, fifteen minutes. Combine it with the stonewall—you’d think people, especially a lawyer, would figure out that’s gonna backfire—and I definitely want to talk to her.”
His finger traveled to the bottom of the list. “Last and certainly not least: Ellen Cerillos, M.D., she of woke ocean consciousness. Her front desk I couldn’t even get to. Group practice in Sherman Oaks. Twelve-step voicemail then I got cut off.”
“One of the DUIs,” I said.
“And look at this.”
He pulled out another sheet from the case. Printout of an online map, his handwritten red marker line connecting the Benedict Canyon house and the clinic’s location on Moorpark Street.
Six miles due south, a fifteen-minute drive taking it slow.
“Doesn’t mean much by itself,” he said. “But.”
He drank coffee. “Kierstead said the woman she saw was youngish and Blunt’s older than she is. But like I said she’s a looker. And fit, runs marathons. Kierstead’s got kind of a prim, matronly air, no? I can see her thinking Blunt was younger.”
He chomped the sandwich, continued eating as he got to his feet. “Ready to consult a lawyer?”
CHAPTER
16
Kagan, Kiprianidos, Blunt, and Shapiro occupied one of a dozen suites on the third floor of a determinedly undistinguished steel and gray-glass building on Wilshire just west of Robertson. Cheap black carpeting, cheap white doors, Thai food aromas wafting from somewhere.
I’d looked up the firm as Milo drove. Aviation and air-transport law. No associates, just the four partners. Joan Blunt had solid qualifications: B.A. from Penn, J.D. from Berkeley.
Her website photo was the Instagram shot Milo had commented on. Accurately. Milky oval face graced by full lips, enormous blue eyes, firm, dimpled chin. All of that under luxuriant black hair.
Broad, square shoulders suggested vitality. So did her extracurricular interests: marathons and piloting jet planes with instrument certification.
Her waiting room was three stiff-backed chairs on either side of a brown-marble floor. No one waiting. Magazines filled a plastic wall rack. Chagall prints not even pretending to be real hung on three beige walls: cows, fiddlers, bemused brides floating midair.
A young ponytailed blonde in jeans and a black T-shirt looked up from a no-nonsense reception desk and smiled automatically. Behind her, more beige. The kind of wallpaper you see in hospitals because it’s easy to clean.
Milo introduced himself. The receptionist’s smile flickered and fizzled.
“Um, you called before.”
“We did.”
“I’m sorry, she’s super busy. If you want to make an appointment—”
“Not necessary, we can wait.”
“Um…it’s not necessary.”
“It is for us.”
“Um…hold on—please have a seat. Okay?”
We remained on our feet but moved back a few inches to give her the illusion of privacy. She punched an extension. Nervous eyes scanned us as she spoke softly into the receiver. Frowned.
“In a moment.”
* * *
—
A “moment” was twenty-two minutes. For the last fifteen, we’d relented and sat, thumbing through Air & Space, Elite Traveler, Soar, and Flying.
I’d taken in a whole lot of data I’d never need—maintenance costs on a ten-year-old Gulfstream III—by the time a throaty voice said, “I have ten minutes. Come.”
Joan Blunt stood to the right of the reception desk. Perfect posture and shorter than I’d expected from the strong shoulders in her photo. Five-three, tops, a lot of it trim but no shortage of curvy torso.
Even more gorgeous than the photo. Like her receptionist, she wore jeans under a simple top—a maroon crewneck. Brown flats, no makeup, the abundant dark hair drawn back on both sides by tortoiseshell barrettes.
That level of beauty could’ve taught her to coquette her way through life. Instead, she’d worked hard and done well at good schools and learned to fly planes at five hundred miles an hour. Her posture, the authority in her voice, the functional work space, said Take me or leave me.
She turned to the right and began walking without waiting for us to follow.
Milo said, “Thanks for seeing us, Ms. Blunt.”
Without stopping, she said, “Joan. And you are?”
Milo always uses his rank. This time, he said, “Milo Sturgis. This is Alex.”
“Milo. Alex. Fine, let’s get this show on the road.”
* * *
—
No style upgrade in Joan Blunt’s private office. A desk larger but no less utilitarian than the receptionist’s, a pair of the same stiff chairs. One window provided an eyeful of the office building across Wilshire. The desktop was clear but for two framed photos facing away from visitors. Diplomas on the wall behind the desk—her B.A. in history magna cum laude—shared space with a certificate from the U.S. Air Force.