Sean and Moe kept a watch at Michael Heck’s West L.A. apartment while Milo and Alicia took Bettina Bel Geddes’s Tudor house on the 600 block of Trenton Drive on the western edge of the Beverly Hills Flats.
I saw patients and read the detectives’ daily reports.
—
For the first three days, both subjects went to work, came home, and stayed there. On the fourth day, Michael Heck stuck to that routine but Bettina Bel Geddes and her husband took the red Porsche to an Italian restaurant on Little Santa Monica Boulevard. Ernest Straub, M.D., was fortyish, tall, slim, and gray-haired, favored unstructured suits over T-shirts and wildly colored running shoes.
Alicia and Bel Geddes had never met so she ventured inside the restaurant while Milo stayed in the Porsche 928.
Alicia emerged moments later and got back in the passenger seat. “Both of them are busy on their phones. Wouldn’t it be something if she was calling Heck with Hubby right there? Not that he’s being the least bit attentive.”
“Modern romance,” said Milo.
Ten minutes later, Bel Geddes exited, shifted a few feet to the westof the restaurant in front of a now-dark boutique, and pulled out her phone.
Milo and Alicia waited to see if Straub would join her and when he didn’t, they converged on her.
“Evening, Bettina.”
She clicked off, eyes flashing. “What the fu—”
Then her eyes shifted to the photo in Milo’s palm. The hotel parking lot, full view of her face as she stood next to Heck.
Anger shifted to confusion. Then terror.
She looked over at the restaurant, blinking rapidly, lips quivering. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” said Milo. “We need to talk, Bettina.”
“I—” Another glance at the photo. “Put that away! Away—please.”
“No prob, if you agree to chat, Bettina.”
“Sure, sure, fine, whatever but now…I…later. Put itaway!”
Milo slipped the image back in his pocket. “Not too much later, Bettina.”
“Fine. Tomorrow.”
“Tonight would be better.”
“How can I—I’m with—howcanI?”
“Finish your dinner with Dr. Straub, then go home and tell him you want to take a walk.”
“I—he…I…fine. When?”
“Whenever you’re ready. We’ll be able to see you.”
“You’ve been watching me—I can’t believe—this is fu—…crazy.”
“Bon appétit,Bettina.”
“As if. I’m going to vomit.”
But she didn’t, drawing herself up on stiletto heels, fluffing her hair, reentering the restaurant and appearing thirty-two minutes later with Straub.
Neither of them talking.
