For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series by Albert Simon

Robert Goulet within the same year.

    Henry checked the My
Documents folder, there were numerous letters, and a spreadsheet
with Thornbird’s stock portfolio, Henry opened the spreadsheet and
wished he was doing as well with his investments, but there was
nothing in there that would lead him to a killer. He opened about
twenty or so documents, they were letters to buyers thanking them
for purchasing a home from Thornbird. They were standard form
letters and made no references to price, previous ownership or any
details about the home.

    Henry was starting to wonder
if the laptop that had to be around somewhere – why else would
Thornbird have this Wireless Access Point – had some critical
information on it. Maybe he should call Wayne and ask him if the
property room had the machine. Perhaps he should look for it in the
closet or somewhere here in the house. It could be in the Land
Rover in the garage, he wondered if the keys to the car were around
here somewhere. If Henry had a laptop, he would keep it in its bag
right near the door. What good was such a machine if you didn’t
keep it mobile, ready to go.

    Henry was frustrated that he
couldn’t find anything. He went back to reading Thornbird’s
Favorites list and went through it one more time. He clicked on the
article at the Palm Springs Living website and started reading.
Palm Springs Living was a glossy magazine that was more advertising
than content in Henry’s opinion. He’d read a few issues and
acknowledged that every once in a while they did print an
interesting story. It looked as though Thornbird bookmarked a story
that the magazine published a little while ago, this one was about
Alexander homes. Henry started reading:

    Robert and George
Alexander, a father and son developer team, teamed up with noted
Palm Springs architect William Krisel and started building tracts
of homes in Palm Springs for a decade starting in 1947 that were
based on a single interior design and varied exterior designs that
made them look different from the street. The homes were all
approximately 1,600 square feet but were designed to look larger
since the roofline continued to the carport.

    The homes turned their
backs to the street, with the three bedrooms on the street side.
This made the kitchens and living rooms face the backyards in order
to emphasize the outdoor living that the Coachella Valley climate
allowed. Most of these ”Alexander” homes were also built with
swimming pools and appealed to the upper middle class Los Angeles
families in the mid-fifties who wanted a second home away from the
big city.

    The article continued to
talk about where the Alexander tracts could be found within the
city. It pointed out that these homes were simply constructed, did
not have much storage space and now needed expensive repairs and
refurbishment from their new owners.

    Obviously Thornbird had used
a lot of this information as background in his business. There was
no mention in the article of any of these homes being popular with
movie stars; it looked as though Thornbird had come up with that on
his own. This was interesting, but it merely confirmed that Rex
came up with the celebrity tie-in in order to boost the prices and
desirability of what appeared to be small homes that didn’t meet
the standards of today.

    Henry leaned back in
Thornbird’s chair and looked at the computer screen. He was missing
something and didn’t know what it was. He looked around the room as
he thought about it. His own office certainly didn’t look like
this. There was beautiful real wood paneling on the walls, there
was a watercolor painting above the desk that was real, not a
knockoff print. There was a vase on a shelf in the corner of the
room from a recognizable glass artist with an unpronounceable last
name. Real estate had definitely been good to Rex Thornbird, but it
had also killed him, and Henry was trying to find out
whom.

    Henry looked back at the
screen. Suddenly it struck him -