One Murder More, page 28
Morning Sun said nothing, perhaps figuring his young detective would get there best on his own. But Maren stood up suddenly, swaying a little. She gripped the edge of the table for support as she spoke.
“There is one murder more,” Maren said. “The one Sean is charged with, the one he’s still in jail for. Tamara Barnes. The similarity in the knife strikes, Tamara uncovering the charge receipt, the evidence against Wallis. Wallis Lisborne must have killed Tamara. What is it you look at—motive, opportunity, means? Didn’t she have them all?” She took a deep breath. “Did Caleb Waterston say anything about Tamara Barnes’ murder?”
Sifuentes reddened, then smiled.
He tapped the tablet again. “Yes. I skipped a screen. Technology is our friend until it is not, yes?” He lifted up a hand, palm spread, all five fingers showing. “Five, it is five murders. Ms. Barnes’s murder should have been second on the list. In fact, it seemed the cause of Jack Caries’s visit to Caleb Waterston. If you like, I can play that section of the audio.” He looked to Morning Sun, who nodded.
Maren sat back down, folding her hands on the table in front of her as she leaned forward to hear.
CHAPTER 41
“It’s been too long.” Jack’s voice.
Then Waterston. “Rum, no ice?”
The sound of liquid pouring—the recorder disguised as a cell phone on the table next to the glasses.
“Which reminds me, I brought you a little something to celebrate.” Jack again.
“Forty-year-old Balvenie? A celebration must be in order.” Waterston.
The sound of clinking glasses. Laughter—Waterston’s unmistakable heh-heh-heh.
“But what happened to make it so . . . complicated?” Jack.
Maren rose and stood behind Detective Sifuentes where she could see the graphic of the sound level going up and down.
“Marjorie Hopkins’s death was Wallis’s idea.” Waterston. “She found out Hopkins could sink our investment with her research, so Wallis took care of it. The journalist figured that out. A tower of blocks and cards in the end. Unfortunate. I know how you feel about Tamara.”
“Kid stuff, times change.” Jack.
Jack Caries is bluffing, Maren thought, keeping Waterston talking.
“Tamara told me she wanted out of the New Mexico funds. Her behavior became unpredictable and jumpy. I came across her crying like a little girl. She had stumbled upon something linking the account to Hopkins’s death.”
No response from Jack.
Waterston again. “I made the decision.” “Did you—”
“Me? I have no stomach for violence.”
“But wasn’t it hard for Wallis to kill another woman? And someone she knew?”
“No. As Wallis told it, the knife cut through Tamara’s heart easily, soft as butter.”
A scuffling sound, a crash, maybe a chair tipping over.
“Okay, okay, calm down. You’re right. I took care of Wallis, didn’t I? Justice was done. A little poison in chocolate. She and that journalist both had a sweet tooth. In its own way, a kite across the harbor. I’ll get us some food, let’s start over. After all, chess satisfies, not checkers.”
The graphic on the screen went flat.
It’s over, Maren thought, but Sifuentes raised a hand.
The sound of one gunshot. Then another. The two that Maren had heard through the fence. Nearly a minute passed.
Then Waterston’s voice. “Maren.” A pause. “Maren.”
CHAPTER 42
Sal Castro pushed away her coffee and the untouched chocolate chip cookie. She looked across the diner at Noel seated alone in a corner booth. Peering over an open newspaper in his fedora and trench coat, he looked like a 1940s government agent from central casting staking out the mob.
Noel had refused to let Sal meet her brother on her own. Sal thought he might as well be wearing a sign saying, “Don’t look at me. I’m inconspicuous.”
Billy entered the café and slouched toward her, a walk he had perfected in his teens that said, “You can’t make me do anything.” He pulled a chair out from the small table where she sat and turned it around so he could sit astride it. His back was to Noel, whom he appeared not to have noticed.
“You going to eat that?” Billy asked as he lifted the cookie off Sal’s plate and took a large bite.
Sal watched him, saying nothing. Billy kept eating.
“I’m getting married,” he finally said, mouth still full. Billy looked straight at her, no hesitation, no fumbling. He seemed to Sal to be working from a script in his head. “I’ve changed. I’m clean.”
Sal had heard it before.
Billy smiled—that smile that had charmed so many women—one lopsided dimple in his even, tanned face. “I want to see my kid. I want her with me.”
Sal’s stomach tightened. Noel couldn’t hear, but he could see Sal’s expression. He set his paper down.
Sal laid both her palms flat on the table and leaned toward Billy. “You can’t do that. Bethany is my daughter;. I’ve raised her. I love her.” Then added, “You have to think of what’s best for her.”
“I have rights.” “You don’t.”
Billy looked down. “I’ve seen a lawyer.” He reached over as he said it, taking Sal’s coffee now, too.
At Billy’s movement toward Sal, Noel stood.
“Did you tell this lawyer that you fathered this child through rape?” Sal said, her voice even.
“Tamara’s gone, rest her soul,” he said, his jaw clenched. “We were a couple. That’s our child, not yours.” Then Billy went all in. “You will let me spend time with her or I will tell Bethany that I’m her father.”
Sal paled. She leaned back, away from the threat.
Billy didn’t see Noel coming, didn’t feel Noel once he was standing behind him. “Where do you think Tamara Barnes went that last night after you left her?” Noel said. He spoke softly, almost intimately.
Billy turned his upper body, a hard maneuver while astride the chair.
When he succeeded, it took him a minute, but he recognized Noel.
Billy turned back to Sal, sounding every bit the little brother. “What’s he doing here? You said just us. You said Marilyn couldn’t come.”
Noel took another two steps, moving into Billy’s line of sight. “Tamara Barnes went to the emergency room that night. What you did to her without consent left a physical record.”
Billy stared hard at Noel, then pushed himself off the chair, standing so he could face him. They were both tall men, but Billy packed muscle on his frame from construction work and must have outweighed Noel by fifty pounds.
Noel spoke firmly. He was used to outsized college boy-men whose size gave them confidence even as their brains trailed behind. Reading the confused, even frightened look on Billy’s face, Noel was secure his bluff would hold. “You have twenty-four hours to leave town or I will turn Tamara’s medical records and her sworn statement that you are responsible for her rape over to the district attorney. As a tenured member of the scientific faculty, I expect they will give my involvement in the case significant weight.”
Billy’s mouth turned down. His shoulders drooped. He looked back at Sal. “C’mon, sis. It’s Marilyn. She’ll be good to the kid.”
Sal had been processing what Noel said. Did that really happen? Did Tamara go to the hospital and were there records? But at the mention of Marilyn, Sal realized what was at the heart of her brother’s plea.
Billy would never have come back for Bethany if his girlfriend hadn’t wanted to play mommy.
“You will tell that young woman that you were mistaken,” Sal said as she stood, a head shorter than Billy and Noel. “You will tell her that Bethany is not your child, that you’ve seen a DNA test I produced from the real father. Tell her Tamara Barnes lied to you about you being her baby’s father. I don’t care how you do it or what new lies you spin, you will undo the damage you’ve done by leading Marilyn into thinking you had a ready-made family for her.”
The sibling resemblance was increasingly clear. Both Billy and Sal looked ready to break something, preferably over the other one’s head.
Noel put his hand on Billy’s shoulder and started to speak a word of caution, but Billy had had enough of being lectured to by this fop. He pulled back his right arm, hand in a tight fist, target in sight.
It was over in seconds as Noel Kane swiftly ducked and kneed Billy in the groin before Billy’s punch could connect. Billy collapsed, moaning, knees to his chest on the ground.
Sal smiled. The pain her little brother was now feeling would subside, and it was nothing compared to what she would have felt had he succeeded in tearing Bethany from her. In fact, Sal would have cheered, if she weren’t conscious of the few other patrons in the restaurant watching them. Instead, she eyed Noel appraisingly. And couldn’t resist teasing him. A little.
“I’m impressed. Although I would think Spock’s death grip would have been your first choice to incapacitate him.”
“A common misconception,” Noel responded, calm but serious. “Humans don’t have sufficient tensile hand strength to execute that—it only works if you’re Vulcan.”
CHAPTER 43
Standing next to Lana in the capitol restroom, Maren was finding it difficult to get ready. Lana’s thick black hair shone as she brushed and twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck. It was too hot to wear it loose. Meanwhile, Maren’s curls were giving new meaning to the word frizz. The mirror seemed to Maren to yield two options. Movie star siren on one end and frazzled working woman on the other. She wanted to trade sides.
Polly was oblivious to Maren’s engagement in a silent beauty contest. Her short, spiky hair never needed combing. Besides, she was wrestling with understanding Caleb Waterston’s involvement in the murders. “The bloke poisoned the journalist Simone what’s-her-name because she was on to the Hopkins murder, and then he poisoned Wallis Lisborne to keep her from talking and also for the investment money?”
Lana nodded, carefully blotting the dark-red matte color on her full lips.
Not, as Maren observed, that they needed any help.
Lana tightened the black belt on her deep-green sleeveless sheath, accenting her hourglass figure. Maren adjusted her scarf. Brown to match her cane.
“Maren, you figured out it was one person who killed Hopkins and Tamara. But for Waterston to also be involved in Tamara’s death—wasn’t he engaged to her?”
“No.” Both Maren and Lana answered at the same time.
Maren let Lana finish. “Caleb faked his engagement to Tamara after Tamara’s death, cropping group photos at capitol events so it looked like just the two of them. He thought it was a good cover for the fact that he and Wallis Lisborne had been involved since her Hollywood stuntwoman days. Caleb’s the one who brought Wallis up here.”
Polly finally faced the mirror as she spoke, appraising her black mini-skirt and black-and-white geometric top. She seemed satisfied. “It’s too bloody much to believe.”
Maren shrugged. She had known Caleb Waterston for years and it wasn’t as surprising to her. “I doubt Caleb started with murderous intentions. But with the clause in the partnership that living investors split dead ones’ shares to the tune of millions of dollars, the temptation to eliminate partners must have been too great. Especially with Wallis starting things off with Hopkins’s murder.”
“The background check showed Wallis Lisborne had an extremely abusive mother,” Lana said. “Wallis seemed to find an outlet for those issues through feigned violence in the stuntwoman work she did, often killing women according to script. At some point, the line between staged and real blurred for her.”
The three women left the capitol building on foot. Maren’s leg was aching. She had been overdoing it, no question. Fortunately, Lana’s car was in the lot right across the street. As they waited for the light to change to cross at Tenth and L, Maren saw Alec Joben approaching from a block away.
Maren hadn’t seen him since that night at the Hyatt.
She tried to steer Polly and Lana behind one of the big oak trees on the edge of Capitol Park.
“What are you doing?” Lana protested.
Too late. Alec had seen her. He broke into an easy jog, heading toward them.
Jogging? Is he really jogging in his suit in ninety-degree heat? Maren looked for somewhere better to hide.
“It looks like someone is happy to see you,” Polly remarked, watching the handsome senator gaining ground.
Lana noticed Maren turning in circles. “What are you doing?”
Alec was there before Maren could get her brain and body coordinated to choose and implement an escape route.
Then it happened. What always happened when men were confronted with Lana Decateau, real-life screen goddess. Alec stopped functioning. He stared at Lana. Her perfect oval face, flawless skin, the slight scoop in the neck of her soft-green fitted dress, the curves, so many curves, then the long legs without stockings in black leather pumps.
Maren was lost. Despite coaching herself that he was flawed and that it was a bad move, given their work, to start a relationship, her heart hadn’t listened, and the heartbreak she expected had arrived.
There is a biological imperative for a straight male when faced with a perfect physical female specimen to honor it, to react. Alec did just that. And in some men the physical response takes over.
But not for Alec. Within a moment he could speak. He introduced himself to Lana. Then she might as well not have been there.
He turned to Maren and pulled her toward him, his arms around her waist, and kissed her. She kissed him back, encircling his neck with her arms and stretching up as he leaned down and into her.
When more than a moment had passed, Alec moved his mouth from hers to her ear. He whispered.
“I’ve missed you. It’s hard to find a good cowgirl in the city.”
GOVERNOR RAYMOND FERNANDEZ sat down with his wife, Martha, for a private dinner at the window table in the bedroom overlooking their back garden.
The historic California governor’s mansion had long since been retired as a residence, last used by Governor Ronald Reagan in the ’70s. Each governor had found more comfortable and less expensive quarters, while the old mansion was opened to the public and used only for special events. In their move to the capitol upon his election, Martha and Raymond had chosen to live in a modest home in Midtown Sacramento in a diverse neighborhood reminiscent of their LA roots.
Tonight the server brought the meal to their bedroom and left so they could eat uninterrupted on one of their rare unscheduled evenings at home. The imperatives of gubernatorial security meant fences, alarms, and capitol security on the premises at all times. The best they could do for privacy was keep to their room.
As he lifted his wine glass, Fernandez reflected how glad he was that “the episode” with the Barnes girl was resolved.
He owed Maren Kane a special thanks for figuring out “the governor” Tamara Barnes had referred to in the investment scandal was former governor Jack Caries and not him. Though Ray was disappointed Maren hadn’t decided to go for the Washington position—she would have been good at it, and it would have been a great connection for him to have her on the inside there.
He took a sip of the Cabernet from the local Berryessa Gap Vineyards. It was outstanding. Although his own name had been cleared, Ray couldn’t avoid the fact that tragedy had struck the California capital during his term.
His predecessor in the governor’s office, Jack Caries, and Tamara Barnes had both been murdered, as had a journalist. Evidently tapes she had made were going to provide evidence in the case against Caleb Waterston. He’d never liked the guy, the worst of what the lobbying profession had to offer.
Money for votes, and now murder for money.
Fortunately, in all this mess the signing ceremony that afternoon for the driver cell phone ban had gone well. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the bill in the end. It had taken a tragedy, a neighbor of Republican Senator Joe Mathis being seriously injured. Still, Ray was glad the two parties had gotten together, whatever the reason. Controversial bills were never easy, but it was possible for him to sign one if there was bipartisan support.
Content, he lifted the silver warming cover off his plate and tried a forkful of the chicken mole. Fernandez hadn’t wanted to replace the chef for the governor’s mansion when he was elected, but he had heard Governor Caries was a pot roast man and was concerned whether he could go four years without the Mexican dishes of his childhood. He needn’t have worried—Caries’s chef could cook anything. But Caries wouldn’t be enjoying any more meals of any kind.
Really a shame, he thought.
“Feeling better, dear?” his wife asked, watching him eat with gusto after days of picking at his food. “You seem more yourself.”
“Yes, it was just exhaustion, I’m sure. We’ll have to think hard about that second term. Maybe better to have time to ourselves instead of trying to solve the intractable problems of this state.” He left unmentioned that he had decided to let Delilah go as his receptionist. Maybe then he would get a little more rest. “I hear Senator Rorie Rickman might be interested in the job. Perhaps I will endorse her . . .”
IT WAS STICKY HOT, even at 7:00 p.m. Summer had come early, pushing its way into the Sacramento Valley. The fog was gone. Sean didn’t seem to notice. He left his black suit coat on and didn’t bother to loosen his red-striped blue tie. Or is that a blue-striped red tie? Maren smiled to herself. Despite the sad occasion, she was so happy to see him free.
There were days when she had doubted it would ever happen.
Alec Joben wasn’t there. He had left to attend a caucus meeting. She knew if this clicked for them, he would be on his phone, or late, then later, then absent, much of the time. That was okay with Maren, at least for now. She figured it could all be worked out later. Or not. There was too much for her to be happy about in this one moment to let the thought of future problems spoil it.
