Free Karma by Susan Dunlap Page B

kind of place allows that? What about that housemother, what was she doing?”
    “The present housemother, Leah deVeau, wasn’t there then.”
    Felcher leaned forward suddenly. “What? You…”
    He seemed so startled and upset that I asked, “Did you think there had been a housemother then? Surely you knew there wasn’t—”
    “I don’t care whether they had a housemother or—or not,” he said. “They had no business letting my son overdose. Look, I work sixty hours a week. I’m never home, and Bobby didn’t overdose here. What kind of a place are they running? Yeah, I’d like to wipe it off the earth.”
    I made a show of jotting notes, giving him time to cool down. Wiping perspiration from my brow, I asked, “Mr. Felcher, where were you last night between eight and nine?”
    “At the movies.”
    “Which one?”
    “The California. They were showing a Charles Bronson.”
    “When did it start?”
    “Jesus, lady, you think I remember that!” His fists tightened, and I thought of how easily that meaty hand could have shoved the knife into Padmasvana’s unprotected chest. “It was the first show. I was home by ten-thirty.”
    “Fine.” I wrote: Cal—1st sh. Bron. The California Theater had four theaters in one. Felcher would have had to come nude to be remembered. “Mr. Felcher, as a realtor, what would you guess the payments on the property would be?”
    He leaned over, riffling through another drawer. “Don’t need to guess,” he said in a calmer voice. “Ain’t no payments. Just property taxes.”
    “No payments?” That certainly wasn’t what Chupa-da had told me, but perhaps he had mistaken the taxes for payments. “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah, lady, I’m sure. You don’t make it in real estate with maybes. And believe me, I checked this place out. Some old idiot joined the group, willed them the property, then died. Before you jump, the old girl dropped dead from heart failure, brought on by years of diabetes—no funny business. Believe me, I checked. Left the whole goddamned place to them. Every penny paid.”
    “What would you guess utilities run in a place like that?”
    Felcher flipped through his papers. “Last year, midwinter, sixty a month, including the temple. And most of that was for water. As far as I can see, they don’t heat the house, but they can’t keep the page boys from taking a leak.”
    I leaned on the desk. “You’ve given their operation a lot of thought, Mr. Felcher. If the money they take in isn’t used for mortgage payments and utilities, where do you think it’s going?”
    Felcher leaned in, placing a hand on my arm. “You’d better ask that stuffed sausage of an emcee that question.”

Chapter 9
    E AGER AS I WAS to have a stab at the “stuffed sausage,” I realized it had been seven hours since my practically nonexistent breakfast, and nearly five since Garrett Kleinfeld had filled me with longing for a Danish. In that time I had crossed Berkeley as regularly as a local bus driver. Surely there must be a more efficient way of investigating.
    As I headed back to the station now I tried to organize what I had learned in those seven interviews. Heather had aspired to power in the name of her baby, but Chupa-da had beaten her to it. He had thrust himself in Padmasvana’s place with what could only be viewed as unseemly haste. And he had lied about making payments for the temple lands. Or had Braga lied to him? An interesting thought. Was Braga pocketing money and telling Padmasvana’s followers he was making monthly payments?
    Braga? If indeed the property was in his name, with Padmasvana dead he could sell it to Felcher and clear one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
    And Felcher. For motive, he had it all: the completion of his dream, his ten-story monstrosity; a huge profit; revenge for his son’s death.
    I sighed as I got out of the car. In life Padmasvana had been an appealing young man. In death he’d become merely the means to satisfying a