are you going with the caviar?”
Nikki headed for the door. “To offer my condolences.”
“To the Bernards? Nikki, I’m not sure that’s a—”
“I won’t be long, Mother. I just have to see what’s going on over there. I have to try and find out what they know about Eddie’s murder. What’s being said about Jorge.”
Victoria came up off the couch. “You’re not going to the—”
“Yes, I am. Stay,” she ordered the dogs as she opened the door.
Stanley and Oliver dropped their bottoms to the floor.
“You most certainly are not.” Victoria tossed the remote on the couch as she followed Nikki. “Not without me, you’re not.”
Chapter 6
V ictoria and Nikki walked out the French doors from the kitchen, across the well-lit side lawn, toward the side gate between their house and the Bernards’. They didn’t dare go in through the front gates. When Nikki had returned from the police station, Roxbury Drive had been mobbed with news vans and paparazzi.
“I think you need to consider adding video cameras around the property, Mother,” Nikki said at the gate.
Victoria sighed. “I hate the cameras. We’ve already got them at the front gate, at the front door. It’s not the way we did things in the old days.”
“In the old days, your neighbors weren’t being murdered and left in the alley. Didn’t your friend Lola just have to take some nut to court because he was stalking her?”
“He wanted to marry her and live in Cuba in a commune.” As Victoria opened the wrought-iron gate, she lifted her nose into the air. “Ridiculous. She claims to be seventy-five, but she’s eighty if she’s a day . . . and she’s a Republican! What on earth would that young man have thought they would have in common?”
Nikki smiled to herself. She loved the way her mother looked at the world. “I think we’ll go around to the front door,” she said over her shoulder.
“Mourning is not for a kitchen entrance. I’m glad I taught you good manners. Even if you don’t always choose to exercise them,” Victoria added. She just couldn’t resist.
Nikki didn’t take the bait.
As they walked past the pool, Nikki noticed that nothing had been cleaned up in the aftermath of Eddie’s party . . . his last party, it turned out. There were still paper cups and napkins and trash everywhere, but there were bud vases on the tables with a pink rose in each. They looked sadly out of place. She felt badly for the Bernards, for all of them. They were nice people, too nice to be going through a tragedy like this.
As they walked along the fence, a security light with a motion detector on the rear of the house came on. Nikki saw a young man wearing black pants and a white shirt slip out the rear door of the breakfast room and pull a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
From the side yard, Nikki and Victoria entered the motor court where there were several parked cars. Beyond the double gates, Nikki saw the bright lights of news vans and assorted media campers parked on Roxbury Drive. She and her mother walked between the house and the fountain at the center of the motor court, which featured a six-foot-high sculpture of a dolphin with a girl on its back. Lit with bright white lights, water cascaded out of the dolphin’s mouth and into the massive marble bowl below.
Victoria always liked to say that having money didn’t guarantee having good taste. Nikki had thought that Abe Bernard’s taste was proof of where he had been and where he was now: an eclectic mix of Hollywood multimillionaire and the boy who had lived in a Brooklyn flat with his grandmother in the forties. The dolphin fountain definitely belonged to the boy.
The three-story white stone French Regency Abe had built, however, was the epitome of good taste, with elegant arched windows and doors and a scale that was breathtaking. Nikki, real estate agent to the stars, thought it was one of the finest examples of French Regency architecture in L.A.
“Let me
Nikki headed for the door. “To offer my condolences.”
“To the Bernards? Nikki, I’m not sure that’s a—”
“I won’t be long, Mother. I just have to see what’s going on over there. I have to try and find out what they know about Eddie’s murder. What’s being said about Jorge.”
Victoria came up off the couch. “You’re not going to the—”
“Yes, I am. Stay,” she ordered the dogs as she opened the door.
Stanley and Oliver dropped their bottoms to the floor.
“You most certainly are not.” Victoria tossed the remote on the couch as she followed Nikki. “Not without me, you’re not.”
Chapter 6
V ictoria and Nikki walked out the French doors from the kitchen, across the well-lit side lawn, toward the side gate between their house and the Bernards’. They didn’t dare go in through the front gates. When Nikki had returned from the police station, Roxbury Drive had been mobbed with news vans and paparazzi.
“I think you need to consider adding video cameras around the property, Mother,” Nikki said at the gate.
Victoria sighed. “I hate the cameras. We’ve already got them at the front gate, at the front door. It’s not the way we did things in the old days.”
“In the old days, your neighbors weren’t being murdered and left in the alley. Didn’t your friend Lola just have to take some nut to court because he was stalking her?”
“He wanted to marry her and live in Cuba in a commune.” As Victoria opened the wrought-iron gate, she lifted her nose into the air. “Ridiculous. She claims to be seventy-five, but she’s eighty if she’s a day . . . and she’s a Republican! What on earth would that young man have thought they would have in common?”
Nikki smiled to herself. She loved the way her mother looked at the world. “I think we’ll go around to the front door,” she said over her shoulder.
“Mourning is not for a kitchen entrance. I’m glad I taught you good manners. Even if you don’t always choose to exercise them,” Victoria added. She just couldn’t resist.
Nikki didn’t take the bait.
As they walked past the pool, Nikki noticed that nothing had been cleaned up in the aftermath of Eddie’s party . . . his last party, it turned out. There were still paper cups and napkins and trash everywhere, but there were bud vases on the tables with a pink rose in each. They looked sadly out of place. She felt badly for the Bernards, for all of them. They were nice people, too nice to be going through a tragedy like this.
As they walked along the fence, a security light with a motion detector on the rear of the house came on. Nikki saw a young man wearing black pants and a white shirt slip out the rear door of the breakfast room and pull a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
From the side yard, Nikki and Victoria entered the motor court where there were several parked cars. Beyond the double gates, Nikki saw the bright lights of news vans and assorted media campers parked on Roxbury Drive. She and her mother walked between the house and the fountain at the center of the motor court, which featured a six-foot-high sculpture of a dolphin with a girl on its back. Lit with bright white lights, water cascaded out of the dolphin’s mouth and into the massive marble bowl below.
Victoria always liked to say that having money didn’t guarantee having good taste. Nikki had thought that Abe Bernard’s taste was proof of where he had been and where he was now: an eclectic mix of Hollywood multimillionaire and the boy who had lived in a Brooklyn flat with his grandmother in the forties. The dolphin fountain definitely belonged to the boy.
The three-story white stone French Regency Abe had built, however, was the epitome of good taste, with elegant arched windows and doors and a scale that was breathtaking. Nikki, real estate agent to the stars, thought it was one of the finest examples of French Regency architecture in L.A.
“Let me
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