Killer Ambition - [62]

We made a ruse call to the housekeeper saying that we had a package to deliver so she’d open the gates without any nasty confrontations. The house was set back so far from the street, she’d have to check the surveillance camera to see that we weren’t UPS. I was banking on her not bothering since it was mid-morning, a typical delivery time. And I was right. The gate swung open and we drove through.

A large outer door stood open, giving entrance to an enclosed courtyard with a retractable glass ceiling. It was halfway open right now, but I imagined they’d close it when the sun got a little higher in the sky.

A squat Hispanic woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door. When she saw the contingent of cops behind Bailey and me, she glared at us. “What do you want?” she said, her tone both surly and condescending. It was a rather surprising degree of belligerence in the face of all those uniforms. Bailey raised an eyebrow, introduced us in a steely voice that would’ve given Muhammad Ali some pause, and showed her the search warrant.

She looked at it with suspicious eyes. “You can’t come in,” she said. “Mr. Powers isn’t home.”

“He doesn’t have to be here. We’ll leave him a copy of the warrant. Now if you don’t mind, Ms…?”

“Vasquez.” But she did mind. She folded her arms and said, “Mr. Powers says no one can come in when he’s not home unless he tells me in advance.”

“Ms. Vasquez, no one has the right to refuse to let us execute a search warrant. Please step aside. Then go ahead and call Mr. Powers and tell him we’re here.” With that, Bailey stepped forward and closed the gap, leaving Ms. Vasquez with the choice of either backing up or getting knocked flat. She very reluctantly-but wisely-chose the former option, scurrying away, presumably to call her boss, and Bailey and I stepped inside, the unis on our heels.

The front door led into a wide foyer, which opened into a great room. It had “interior designer” written all over it-but unlike Russell’s, this decorating maven was a minimalist: sparse, simple furniture, with lots of windows and skylights, cool gray walls, and bamboo floors covered by thick Gabbeh rugs that provided striking spots of rich, earthy rusts, browns, and oranges. It was a little stark, but it had an austere appeal.

Bailey dispatched teams of three for each of the bigger rooms, which included an immense kitchen with two refrigerators, three ovens, and three dishwashers. Boyfriend must do some serious entertaining. Bailey and I took the study because it’d pose the gnarliest legal questions about what we were allowed to paw through. Especially since I’d written the “items to be seized” part of the warrant as broadly as I dared. I’ve learned from hard experience that when it comes to warrants, less is not more. Limit yourself too much and you can leave critical evidence behind. And of course, evidence left behind is evidence we’ll never have the chance to get again. So I always try to think ahead to what might become important, even if it isn’t obvious at the moment. But I also had to be careful. Ian was likely to have legal documents that had no bearing on our case, so I wanted to make sure nothing got touched that would get anyone’s hands slapped later.

Given the rest of the house, I’d expected a glass and chrome affair for a desk, but instead this was a traditional kind of study: a heavy-looking mahogany desk with a big leather lawyer’s chair behind it and two cushy upholstered armchairs positioned in front of it. An antique wooden filing cabinet stood in the corner behind the desk, and the walls were covered with framed posters of the movies he and Russell had produced over the years. There were quite a few.

“Don’t see any Oscars, Emmys, or Golden Globes,” Bailey said.

“Maybe he keeps his statuary in the bathroom.”

“Knowing him, more likely in the bedroom.” Bailey and I shared a smirk.

We were just about to get down to work when a commotion at the front door made us stop and listen. A husky female voice was demanding to know what was going on. I leaned out into the hallway and saw a stunning brunette with waist-length hair in a flowing, nearly sheer tunic-length dress and five-inch heels standing in the foyer, a Neiman Marcus shopping bag on her arm.

“Isn’t it kind of early for a Neiman’s run?” I asked Bailey.

“Yes, that does seem to be the question on everyone’s mind.” She nodded toward the officers, who were openly enjoying the view.

“Mrs. Powers-?”

“Or a much-respected girlfriend,” Bailey said.

“Shall I see if she’s free for lunch?” We’d need to interview her pretty quick if Ian wound up in handcuffs. I figured we might as well take a shot at her now since she was here.

“Let the unis get her info for now. We can talk to her later when we’ve got something to work with.”

“Do the guys know how you’re always looking out for them?”

“You’ve seen how fast I pull together search teams,” Bailey replied.

I nodded. “Point taken.”

We got down to work. I started with the filing cabinets, where I was most likely to find the sensitive legal papers. But there wasn’t much there: contracts, old divorce documents-apparently Ian had a “prior”-and some official-looking correspondence with agents, but nothing that appeared to be sensitive, or even current. He’d probably gone paperless-the way of the world.