For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series (2 page)

He thought the house with
the Rudy Vallee pedigree would be perfect for her. The next time
she called, she reached him on his cell phone, and he mentioned the
house with the Rudy Vallee connection. She gushed and said she had
a crush on Rudy as a schoolgirl. She insisted that he meet her at
the house, she didn’t want to come out to his office, said she was
driving from Cambria, or wherever, Rex couldn’t remember, and it
was easier for her to go there directly.

He usually preferred meeting
clients in the office out on Palm Canyon and driving them over to
the property in his big Jaguar. First they were usually impressed
with the car, and he felt that the Jaguar showed that he had class
and could be trusted. Second and more importantly, when he drove,
he controlled the route that they took to the house. His route was
the most advantageous to showing off the neighborhood, not always
the shortest way to the house. He also made a point of driving by
all the for sale signs with his picture on them.

Rex looked in the Jag’s rear
view mirror, he checked to make sure his hair was still combed
neatly. He turned off the ignition as the big seat slid back from
its memorized forward driving position to let him out of the car.
He loved that creature comfort feature, though he didn’t really
need it, he wasn’t a very large man, his driver’s license said he
was five foot eight and weighed one-fifty-five, and both of those
were generous. Rex opened the rear passenger door and carefully
took his sports coat off its hanger and slipped it on. He was a
little fussy about how his clothes looked and didn’t like the
wrinkled look a lot of the other agents had and always took his
coat off when he drove. He brushed a bit of lint off the sleeves,
checked his shoes for their shine and looked up over to the house.
The gravel roof didn’t look too good, but it would last another
year or two in the desert climate that didn’t see much
rain.

Rex walked around his car
and headed for the front door; he never parked in the driveway when
visiting a house, always at the curb. He figured that parking on
the driveway would mean that his client would have to walk around
the car and that would make the space seem smaller. Rex noticed
with approval that the gardeners were there in the morning as he
requested. He knew how to show a house off to its best potential,
making the yard look nice and freshly mowed and raked was important
in the first impression a potential buyer had of the
property.

He bent down to the lockbox
to get the key to the front door, and saw that one of the other
agents had been careless and left the box open. Rex never liked the
combination lock boxes; he didn’t think they were as secure as the
older ones that required a key. Some places were using electronic
lock boxes, but they were expensive and none of the real estate
agencies in the Coachella Valley wanted to spend the
money.

Joe, one of the agents in
the office, told him he should be lucky that lockboxes were used.
Joe said there were a lot of places in the country where you had to
depend on the owner to provide the key to the house. Sometimes the
only way to show a buyer a house was to get a key from the listing
agent, a real pain. No, the lockbox system was better than no
lockboxes at all, Rex reasoned, even if careless agents left the
box unlocked.

He pulled the key out of the
box and opened the front door, he walked in and laid the key on the
kitchen counter, he’d put it back when he locked up as he was
leaving. The house was dark, dusty and a little stuffy, it was a
good thing he was early. He walked to the patio door, flipping on
lights as he went. He pulled open the drapes and slid the big door
open. The house didn’t have any furniture in it; the owners were
from out of town and after owning it for two years and never moving
in, decided to sell. He checked the autographed picture of Rudy
Vallee on the fireplace mantle, straightening it as he went
by.

Rex walked into the hallway,
switched on the light, looked at the thermostat and turned on the
air conditioner. This house had been renovated in the early ‘80’s
and had air, though it couldn’t keep up with the desert heat on the
worst days. It wouldn’t really cool off, especially with the patio
door open, but maybe he could get rid of the stale smell before his
buyer arrived. At that point, Rex realized that he didn’t even know
her name; just that she lived in Cambria, Carpinteria, Camarillo,
or somewhere, on the coast.

Rex continued into the
bedrooms and flipped on the ceiling lights. Walking into the
kitchen, he turned on the fan above the stove; he figured anything
to get some air moving through the house. He thought that she would
be there by now. Maybe she got hung up in traffic on the way down.
Perhaps she called the office to let him know that she was going to
be late, perhaps it was a good idea to call in to see if there were
any messages. His cell phone was out in the car, he never clipped
it to his belt like the other agents, he had one of the older bulky
ones and he just couldn’t stand the bulge it left under his Armani
sport coats.

Before he ran out to the car
for his phone, he spotted the old fashioned wall phone above the
counter, he remembered his parents had a clunker like that in their
kitchen for years, he started dialing, yes, dialing his office, but
there was no dial tone. Frustrated, he slammed the receiver back on
the chrome hook and turned to head out to his car. What was that?
He thought at the noise he heard coming from the utility closet in
the hall. There must be something wrong with the aging air
conditioner; it had to be ready to conk out, or maybe there was air
in the cooling lines.

Maybe he should turn it off
before it made noises with the widow in the house, a noisy air
conditioner would be worse than one that was not on. He could
always mention that the house had an air conditioner, but that he
had not turned it on yet. Perhaps he should take a quick check on
the compressor located outside, it would probably be better if it
was running when she was here, who knows, if he had working air, a
picture of Rudy Vallee and a widow with cash in her bank account,
he would surely close the sale on this place today.

As he opened the door to the
garage and took a step into the darkness, he heard the noise again,
before he had a chance to turn around, he felt something heavy hit
the back of his head. He lost his footing and slipped back and fell
onto the hard floor of the kitchen. Whoa, this isn’t good, he
thought, what will the widow think when she walks in and the
mid-century specialist is on the floor instead of at the
door?

He tried to get up off the
floor but his legs didn’t want to respond. He felt something warm
and sticky running along his neck and onto the floor. Aw shoot, now
I have to clean that up too before she gets here he thought as he
kept trying to get up. Maybe he should rest for a minute, regain
his breath and strength and then he could get his legs to do what
he wanted them to do. He thought it looked like blood beneath his
head, he hoped he could get it off the floor before the widow
arrived, surely that would not make a good first
impression.

Worrying about the pool of
his blood and the mess it made on the floor and the impression it
would leave on the buyer would be the last thoughts that Rex
Thornbird, mid-century specialist and top real estate agent in the
Coachella Valley would ever have.

Chapter 2

Monday, April 17

Henry Wright’s wristwatch
alarm started beeping. The sound signaled that it was forty-five
minutes since he started swimming his daily laps in his backyard
pool. He took a couple of cool down laps and then rolled over on
his back to look up at the sky that was just turning pale blue. He
floated in the middle of the pool, relaxing before climbing out. He
liked swimming early in the morning, the air was still cool, the
water felt good on his bare skin and it was a great way to wake
up.

His lap swimming also
resulted that he was in the best shape that he had ever been in his
sixty-one years. He’d never had a problem with weight; he carried
one hundred eighty pounds on his just over six foot frame as he had
since college. But since he started swimming every day, it had
redistributed. He was wearing a whole pants size smaller, but his
shoulders and chest were larger and some of his old sport coats
didn’t fit as well as they used to.

Henry wrapped the big towel
that he’d left on the chaise lounge around himself as he heard the
phone ring. He looked at the open French doors to his bedroom and
at the doors to the kitchen and decided to head for the kitchen and
pick the phone up there. He looked at his watch as he hurried
through the doors, who could be calling this early?

“
Hello” he said warily into
the receiver. “Good morning Mr. Wright, I didn’t wake you did I?”
The voice in the receiver said. “No, no, not at all”. Henry
replied. “I was out in the pool.”

“
Can you meet me for
breakfast, the usual place?” “This isn’t Thursday, and you called
me Mr. Wright - you must need help.” Henry replied. “Sure, I can be
there in an hour.” “Can you make it thirty minutes?” “You must
really need my help.” Henry said. “Well yes, I do actually, but I
was up early and haven’t had breakfast so I’m really hungry.” “Ok,
I’ll be there as quick as I can.” Henry said hanging up the phone.
He rubbed some of the wetness that was still on his ear off the
phone, and headed for the bathroom.

As he was standing in the
shower, he thought about Wayne Johnson’s call. It did sound urgent;
it wasn’t just the fact that Wayne was hungry. Wayne and Henry met
every Thursday morning for breakfast, but today was Monday. The
last time Wayne called and invited Henry out for a meal early in
the morning outside of their weekly breakfasts, he needed help
solving a particularly nasty death of a University of California
Riverside geologist at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Henry was
glad to help. He and Wayne made a good team, even though they never
worked together officially, and it gave Henry something to
do.

Wayne Johnson was captain of
detectives at the Palm Springs police department. Henry met Wayne
in Washington more than twenty years ago when they were sent there
by their respective organizations to take a fingerprint forensics
class at the FBI headquarters in Virginia. They hit it off then,
and were casual friends until Henry retired to Palm Springs three
years ago. Then they started target shooting at the pistol range
and having breakfast together on a regular basis and Henry had been
over to the Johnson’s for dinner numerous times.

Henry ran his hand over his
hair, there was no need to comb it, he kept it cut very close to
his head. He knew that he had gone gray years ago, but at this
length, it wasn’t noticeable. Even Mario the barber at the shop
downtown called him “Mr. Number Two”, for the size of the clip on
the electric clippers he used on him. He had an all over, all year
tan, one of the benefits of living in the desert and having a house
with a private pool. He picked up his razor and thought about
Wayne’s request for his help, he didn’t remember reading in the
newspaper about any particular case that Wayne was working on, but
then he’d been busy the last couple of days.

Henry got out the can of
shaving cream, he didn’t use electric razors, he preferred the
modern three bladed manual razors. Henry enjoyed going over to the
Johnson’s for dinner, even though the house was large it felt real
homey. The Johnson’s children were grown and out of the house and
now it was just Wayne and his wife, Elliot. The only thing he
didn’t like was the drive home afterwards. After dinner at their
house and seeing Wayne and Elliot interact, he always got
melancholy and missed his wife Irma very much.

Irma Wright passed away
suddenly three years ago while she and Henry were visiting Las
Vegas. At the time, Henry Wright was three months away from
retirement from the Eagle River, Wisconsin, police force where he
had been chief of police for many years. With Henry’s retirement
approaching quickly, he and Irma had discussed moving away from the
snow of Eagle River to spend their retirement in a more comfortable
climate. They discussed both coasts of Florida, “too humid and
sticky” said Irma. They had talked about Phoenix and the Valley of
the Sun, Henry had met a few cops from Arizona and thought it was a
possibility; his colleagues seemed to like it there. Finally, they
narrowed it down to Las Vegas, Nevada or Palm Springs,
California.

Both had warm, arid
climates, both had affordable homes, both had cop friends that
Henry could look up. They decide to check out Las Vegas first.
Henry was somewhat familiar with the city and made their plane
reservations with Joanne, the only travel agent in Eagle River and
they planned to spend a week in Las Vegas. Henry was excited about
the trip, after more than thirty years in Wisconsin, he was tired
of the snow and wouldn’t mind if he never saw another snowmobile in
his life. Las Vegas seemed like the perfect place to
retire.

When the day finally came,
they got up very early in the morning, loaded their suitcases in
the car and drove the 150 plus miles to the Green Bay airport. They
parked the car in the long term lot and caught a 6 am Continental
Airlines flight to Las Vegas with a change in planes at Detroit.
With the stopover, it took them more than five hours to get to Las
Vegas. Once they landed at McCarran, they picked up the rental car
and drove out to the Strip. There, they checked into the Flamingo
Hotel, unpacked their bags, and decided to have some lunch before
seeing the sights at the new mega hotels along the Strip. Henry had
refused the food the airline served; Irma had tried it, but quickly
shared Henry’s opinion that it wasn’t fit for
consumption.