The Second Goodbye

by Patricia Smiley

  “Like what?” Davie asked.

  “Sabine told me her boss started throwing a ridiculous amount of money into the restaurant. With her background in accounting, she suspected he was doing something shady, maybe even illegal. I told her to quit, but she wanted to check out a few things first.”

  “Did she ever follow up with you?”

  Ponti pinched the bridge of his nose as he bowed his head. “I never spoke to her again. The next thing I heard she was missing at sea.”

  Davie waited a beat while he composed himself. “Was the boat ever found? The newspaper said it was a rental.”

  “The newspaper got that wrong,” Darleen said. “We flew to Florida and stayed until the Coast Guard called off the search. That’s when we found out Sabine had borrowed the boat from a friend. He stopped by our hotel to offer condolences. Boyd’s parents were willing to reimburse him for the loss of his boat, but he’d already filed an insurance claim.”

  Davie leaned forward. “What was the friend’s name?”

  “Jack Blasdel,” Ponti said.

  Darleen held up her glass, as if toasting. “Yes, that’s it. Charming man.”

  Davie felt a chill along her spine. June Nakamura claimed Sara Montaine had become reclusive and fearful in the days before her visit to the gunstore, looking to buy a weapon. The store had been out of her neighborhood and undoubtedly out of her comfort zone. Maybe Sabine picked that particular place because she knew the owner. Gerda Pittman had told her Blasdel bragged about helping a woman disappear. Had that been Sabine? If Blasdel helped Sabine disappear once, perhaps she came to him again for another favor.

  Whatever had happened, Jack Blasdel knew more than he’d let on when they’d spoken earlier. Davie would talk to him again, this time in an interview room in the Pacific squad room.

  24

  Davie beat a path through rush hour traffic to the station and found Giordano cleaning his coffeemaker. She told him everything she’d learned about Nazarian, Robert Montaine, Blasdel, and finally that Sara Montaine was Sabine Ponti.

  “Interesting, kid.” Giordano scooped fresh coffee grounds into a paper filter. “So, what do you think happened?”

  “It’s possible the sailboat boom hit Sabine in the head and knocked her overboard. Then somehow she made it to shore and started her life over. But it’s more likely that Blasdel picked her up in a dinghy. If he helped her once, she may have asked for his help again, either to sell her a gun or to help her disappear a second time.”

  He slid the filter basket into the slot. “Okay, you’ve got me intrigued. I’m not going to make this a homicide just yet, but keep working on it. Blasdel told you he didn’t recognize Sabine Ponti when she came into his store that day. I’m guessing that’s a lie. From now on, I don’t want you going anywhere alone. Take Vaughn. If he’s too busy, find somebody else to go with you. You’re going to interview Blasdel again, right?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m also going to call his yacht-insurance broker. Darleen Ponti was under the impression Blasdel had filed a claim, but I’m interested in what, if anything, they discovered in their investigation.”

  “You need to find out why Sabine Ponti faked her death in the first place. What was she running from? Who killed her boss and was his death related to her disappearance? Once you answer those questions, you’ll have a suspect. Then I’ll reclassify the case as a homicide and you can put all the evidence in a neat little package and drive it to the DA’s office.”

  Davie could smell the aroma of strong coffee as it trickled into the pot. She glanced at her boss. “Boyd Ponti said his sister thought Nate Gillen might be involved in financial shenanigans. Gillen’s widow may have information about her husband’s death and Sabine’s disappearance. If nothing else, she might be able to confirm the affair. The spouse always knows.”

  Giordano filled his cup under the spigot before it was finished brewing. “I can’t get you an air ticket to Florida. Not until the case is official.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s always Plan B.” Davie didn’t yet know what Plan B was, but she’d figure it out.

  Every day she’d been holding her breath, hoping there were no new homicides in Pacific to pull her away from either case, but the complexity of the Montaine investigation made her feel as if she were squinting at an eye chart, straining to read that elusive bottom line.

  “Here’s Plan B,” he said. “Bring Blasdel into the station. Squeeze him until he talks. By the way, what’s going on with the Hernandez gang murder? The lieutenant is still pressuring me to file some of these old cases with the DA’s office.”

  “I’m working on it,” she said, walking back to her desk.

  And she was, she told herself, but a feeling of guilt surged through her as she set aside the Hernandez to-do list and instead pulled out Sabine’s notebook and studied its doodles. She stuck the pages on the computer screen with tape, comparing them to samples she’d found online of Greek and Arabic handwriting. Neither was a match.

  Jason Vaughn breezed through the door of the squad room and sniffed the air. “You smell good.” She’d forgotten about Sabine’s perfume on her wrists. Her partner glanced at her computer screen. “What’s that? You planning a move to Counterterrorism?”

  Davie sensed Giordano leaning over her shoulder, studying the screen. “More like the secretarial pool,” he said. “That’s shorthand.”

  25

  “Shorthand?” Davie asked. “How do you know that?”

  “My sister worked as an executive secretary for thirty years. Back when she started, shorthand was a job requirement.”

  “Darleen Ponti just told me Sabine was forced to learn it for a job. You think your sister can translate?”

  “I’m betting it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you learn, you never forget. She’s retired, but I’m sure she still remembers. Give the pages to me. I’ll run copies and drop them by her house tonight on my way home.”

  Giordano took the doodles and headed to the copy machine. A few minutes later, Davie got a call from the prison. Felix Malo had refused the interview. She wasn’t surprised, just disappointed.

  “By the way,” the prison official said, “I checked Malo’s approved visitor list. Alma Velez isn’t on it and I couldn’t find any record they ever spoke by telephone. Just so you know, that doesn’t mean they aren’t communicating. Inmates, especially gang members, send messages through official visitors to hide their contacts.”

  “Any chance he’ll change his mind about the interview?”

  “Doubt it, but I’ll let you know if it happens.”

  Davie still hadn’t been able to reach Alma Velez, so as soon as she ended the call with the prison official, she punched in the number for Velez’s mother. No answer. No message option.

  Davie walked upstairs to the Gang unit and found one of the detectives glaring at his computer screen. Reggie Banker was a black semi-truck in camo with an encyclopedic memory for gang members and their affiliations. He’d been working the unit for years, so she hoped he remembered Alma Velez.

  His intimidating glare turned into a smile when he saw Davie. “Hey, Richards. What’s cookin’?”

  “I’m hoping you have some intel on an Alma Velez.”

  “Yeah. Heard you had a little trouble in the projects last night.” He pointed to the abrasion on her forehead. “Did she put that bump on your head?”

  “Not her, but it may have been one of her homies.”

  “Hope you gave as good as you got.”

  “I tried,” she said. “Velez wasn’t at home when I stopped by and I haven’t been able to reach her since then. Any idea where she hangs out when she’s not at her mom’s place?”

  “Haven’t seen her around for a while. Malo still runs his drug operation from prison and for a while she was his personal assistant and chief financial officer all rolled into one. But
I think she stopped rollin’ with the gang once she had that kid of hers.”

  “You think she’s freaked out that I’m looking into the Javi Hernandez case?”

  “Alma’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I doubt she’d order her peeps to attack a cop. Felix would be pissed if he found out. It just throws negative attention his way.”

  “Any idea where she might be?”

  “I’ll ask around.”

  “Is Felix the father of Velez’s kid?”

  “Hard to say. Even if it weren’t his kid, he wouldn’t admit it. That would mean his girlfriend cheated on him. If he believed that, he’d aim a nine at her temple. End of problem.”

  “If Malo isn’t the father, who is?” Davie asked.

  He shrugged. “I know a lot, but I don’t know everything. It’s probably a gangster, though. Those girls put up with a lot, but they still date within the community because they know their homie will kill for them if need be.”

  Maybe Giordano was right. Behind every homicide was a woman. Davie had no evidence to prove Felix Malo was the baby’s father. For now, it was just a working theory.

  “Have you heard any talk on the street about Javi Hernandez’s murder?”

  “Nah. Old news. Too many gangsters popped since then.”

  “If you hear anything, will you let me know?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Davie walked downstairs to her desk and scoured through the Hernandez Murder Book again, looking through the reports and witness statements. The murder had taken place during the day, so many of the residents were away at work. Those who were at the apartment building claimed they hadn’t seen or heard anything. Detectives had interviewed the on-site apartment manager. He was at the dentist’s office the afternoon the murder went down but said there was a group of gangbangers who frequently hung out in Hernandez’s apartment and sometimes lounged on a mattress in the carport where they drank booze and smoked dope. He claimed it wasn’t unusual for fights to break out. Friends and the victim’s family members were questioned but provided minimal information. Hernandez’s fellow gang members all claimed ignorance of the murder, which wasn’t unusual. Nobody wanted to be a rat.

  Davie leaned back in her chair and thought about who hadn’t been interviewed. Hernandez’s mother and siblings had given statements, except for his brother Daniel, who was in the military at the time, serving in Afghanistan. He hadn’t been around but he might have heard rumors.

  Davie called Javi Hernandez’s mother, who seemed surprised to get the call but also eager to coorperate. She confirmed that Javi’s brother had been discharged from the service and was now working at a food distribution center. It was almost 7:00 p.m. The center was closed. When she pressed in Daniel Hernandez’s cell number, the call went straight to message. Tomorrow she would drive to the center and interview him. Until then, she had a stop to make before she headed home.

  26

  Twenty minutes later Davie pulled into the parking garage of Garden Vista Assisted Living Apartments, the Westside facility where her grandmother lived. After Grammy moved in, Davie had made it a habit to call or visit her every day. Sometimes the workload at Pacific Homicide had altered her routine, but her grandmother understood.

  Every time she visited Grammy, she thought of her mother. She was almost as petite as Davie but with blonde hair not red, blue eyes not green. Davie admired her mother’s beauty, her flawless makeup, and her closet full of expensive clothes. Not that she would break any mirrors, but Davie didn’t consider herself by any means beautiful.

  Her mother and Grammy were opposite in so many ways. Her grandparents’ house had always been full of warmth and laughter. Grammy never got ruffled if the Thanksgiving turkey was dry or the piecrusts were hard as brass doorknobs. The family was together and that’s all that mattered to her. There were never imperfect piecrusts at her mother’s holiday dinners, because dessert always came from an upscale bakery in Brentwood.

  In the early years, her mother treated Davie like a doll. Childhood photos showed a tiny red-haired girl with a sweet face dressed in velvet in front of the Christmas tree and in school outfits coordinated with the flair of a Hollywood stylist. When Davie became a teen, her failure to appreciate the finer points of layered skincare products, contouring with makeup, and highlighter that made cheekbones glimmer like dawn on a mountain lake made her mother throw up her hands in despair.

  During those times when her mother was angry, Grammy was a tree line protecting Davie from an oncoming gale. That had created an unbreakable bond between the two. When Davie was fifteen her mother had an affair and the family split up. Davie went to live with Bear while her brother stayed with their mother and the real estate agent who’d ended her parents’ marriage. The one good thing about living with her own family’s dysfunction was that it helped her understand people like Boyd Ponti and Robert Montaine.

  She signed in with the Garden Vista receptionist and took the creaky elevator to the second floor. The door to Grammy’s apartment was unlocked but Davie knocked before entering. Her grandmother had poor eyesight from macular degeneration and she didn’t want to startle her.

  “It’s me.”

  Grammy’s expression brightened. “Davie, what a surprise. Come in. Can you stay a while?”

  “Yup. I’m finished working for the day.”

  Despite her visual impairment, Grammy immediately spotted the lump on Davie’s forehead. “What happened to you?”

  She’d hoped her grandmother wouldn’t see it. The abrasion was healing but still noticeable. “Just a bruise. Nothing major.”

  Grammy’s cloud of snowy hair tickled Davie’s nose as she kissed the soft skin of her forehead, inhaling the fragrance of her freshly laundered cotton housedress and the Jergens lotion. Davie sat on the loveseat in front of a sliding glass door that led to a patio. Her grandmother never opened it because she had trouble judging elevations and was afraid of tripping on the ledge.

  “How was dinner?” she asked.

  Grammy let out a heavy sigh. “You’ve eaten here before. I’ll leave it to your imagination. The good news is Mrs. Di Vito snuck a hotplate into her room. Tomorrow night is spaghetti—unless the warden smells the sauce and busts her before dinner.”

  Davie picked up her cell and pretended to make a call. “I can send a couple of patrol officers to guard the door.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a hoot?” Grammy pressed a button and her blue chair reclined. “Tell me what you’re working on. Anything special?”

  “I have an old unsolved murder case and a suicide that I hope to reclassify as a homicide,” Davie said, giving her a brief overview of each.

  “That Ponti shooting could be a thriller novel,” she said. “Do you think she ran down her boss and then went into hiding?”

  Davie had to admit that was a credible theory. “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe it was a love affair gone wrong. Old Nate promised to leave his wife and marry Sabine but of course he didn’t. Cads never keep their promises. Some women have to learn the hard way.”

  “How do you know so much about cads?”

  She smoothed her dress over her knees, an uncharacteristically prudish gesture. “I may be old but I’m not dead. I’ve seen a few things in my lifetime.”

  “Somehow I knew that.”

  “And don’t forget the Russians. They’re everywhere in Florida. Sabine could have been a spy. Plus, you said the woman disappeared in the ocean in Fort Lauderdale. What happened to the boat? Poppy and I went there on vacation years ago. The water is shallow. We walked out a long ways from the shore and the water still wasn’t over our heads. Not sure how you lose a boat in shallow water like that.”

  Davie wondered that, too. It was a question that needed answering. She thought about the San Pedro Channel between Los Angeles and Catalina Island. The water was three thousand
feet deep in some places. If a vessel sank, it would likely be lost permanently.

  “You would make a great detective, Grammy.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart, but not in Florida. We read the local paper every day while we were there. That place has strange criminals. Some of them aren’t very smart, either.” Grammy leaned toward her and lowered her voice even though they were alone in the room. “Did I tell you about my new tablemate, Kathleen Newell? She’s from Florida. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Her husband was involved in a Ponzi scheme. After he went to prison, her daughter moved her here. They’re paying for her room because she lost everything.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It must be hard on her.”

  Grammy nodded. “Very hard.”

  It didn’t seem as if her grandmother would get tired of her company any time soon, so Davie nestled into the cushions of the loveseat and listened. For the next thirty minutes they chatted about a variety of subjects, including favorite audiobooks she got from the Braille Institute and a tuba concert the administration had arranged for the residents.

  When Davie noticed her grandmother stifle a yawn she knew it was her cue to go. She removed Grammy’s shoes and compression stockings, and replaced them with a pair of slippers. Then she helped her into her nightgown.

  “I don’t want to pry,” Grammy said, “but have you met any nice young men lately?”

  “I know a lot of nice men, Grammy, but I’m not dating anyone special, if that’s what you’re asking. If I find someone, you know I’ll bring him by for your approval.”

  Her voice became soft and wistful. “I know you’re busy with work. No pressure. I just want you to be happy.”

  “I have you, Grammy. How could I not be happy?”

  Davie remembered Bear’s comment that Jon Striker would have to pass muster with her grandmother before their relationship could advance. She didn’t know if they would ever get to that point, but it was an amusing thought. She resettled her grandmother on her blue recliner and turned the TV to a news program she liked, even though the faces were a blur to her.