No One Left to Tell

by Karen Rose

  “Let’s meet, later. For lunch. I’ll tell you then. I need you to know. What are you going to do about Silas?”

  “Find him,” she said coldly. “And if he doesn’t have one hell of a good alibi, I’ll cuff him and bring him in like anyone else. I’ll call you when I know something.”

  Thursday, April 7, 9:10 a.m.

  Grayson tapped his hands-free earpiece, disconnecting with another sigh. Paige had been watching his face, compassion on hers.

  “She already knew?” she asked. “How?”

  “Silas dropped a picture of Cherri at the nursing-home crime scene last night.” He drew a breath. “She cried. I haven’t heard her cry since Paul and her son were killed.”

  “She’s survived worse than this,” Paige said kindly. “She’ll make it.” She patted his arm. “You said we were going to see party guests. Where do we start?”

  “With Brendon DeGrace. He was Rex’s best friend then. I found him yesterday afternoon. He works at a brokerage downtown. But first, we’re going to see my mother.”

  “Oh. Any chance that Joseph was discreet about how he found us this morning?”

  He glanced over at her, found her cheeks appealingly rosy. “Not a prayer,” he said.

  “Hell. I was afraid of that.”

  “She already likes you. You’ll be fine.” He paused, trying to organize the details in his mind. “How did you find out that Ramon’s attorney committed suicide?”

  “The receptionist at the law firm told me Bob Bond was deceased when I called to make an appointment with him about Ramon. I pulled his death certificate to be sure she wasn’t lying to me. It said ‘suicide.’”

  “Do you know how he did it?”

  She looked surprised. “No, why?”

  “Because Bond would have been a loose end, like Sandoval. Who committed suicide, too. Supposedly.”

  She opened her laptop, did a search. “Here’s an article published the day after Bond’s death. He was found hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Bedsheets.”

  “Like Sandoval.”

  “Exactly like Sandoval. We could ask the ME to review the autopsy reports. See if there were any similarities.”

  “I’ll ask them if you look up the number. I had the MEs in my contact list, but I’ve only reset a few contacts in the new phone.”

  She looked up the number and dialed. “Morgue on line one, sir,” she deadpanned.

  He was almost smiling when the phone was answered by a receptionist. “Dr. Mulhauser, please,” he said.

  “He’s not in today. Can I put you through to his voice mail?”

  “No, I need to talk to a live person.” Paige cleared her throat and he realized what he’d said. “I mean a doctor, in person. Not voice mail. Is Dr. Trask in?”

  “She is.” The receptionist sounded as if she was chuckling. “Let me transfer you.”

  A few rings later his call was picked up. “This is Dr. Trask. How can I help you?”

  Trask worked more with Daphne, but the times Grayson had dealt with her he’d found her to be smart and efficient. And less of a bureaucrat than her counterparts. That she was engaged to Stevie’s partner, J.D., made her trustworthy. “It’s Grayson Smith.”

  “Well, hello there. I hear you were nearly our guest last night.”

  Thinking about what could have happened still made him flinch. “Too nearly. But that’s not why I’m calling. I was wondering if you knew anything about the recent death of one Denny Sandoval.”

  “He was my case. The guy who supposedly hung himself.”

  “You don’t think he did?”

  “No. He had a lot of barbiturates in his system. I don’t think he could have stood up, much less put his own head through a noose. I think he was dead before he was hung. But he was strangled first, so it makes it hard to say.”

  “Your best guess?”

  “He was drugged, repeatedly asphyxiated, strangled, then hung. I’m ruling it homicide based on the barbiturate levels alone. I just have to finish the paperwork.”

  “Repeatedly asphyxiated, how?”

  “I’d guess it was done with a pillow. Bruising around the mouth presented after death. It’s in multiple places, which leads me to believe the asphyxiation had been repeated.”

  “He was tortured.”

  “That’s my take. I didn’t find any feather fluff in his lungs, but it’s possible the pillow was synthetic. The detectives assigned to the case should remember what kind of pillows he had. That was Morton and Bashears. Why are you asking about Sandoval?”

  “I think this connects to another case. Can you look up a guy named Bob Bond? He also hung himself.”

  “Give me a few minutes to pull the file. You wouldn’t happen to have a date of death, would you?”

  He looked over at Paige. “Death date for Bob Bond?”

  “September seventeen,” Paige said. “Four years ago. Ask her to pull Crystal Jones’s autopsy report as well. Ask her to see if there’s anything… odd.”

  “I heard that,” Lucy said before he could relay the information. “Is that the woman I saw on TV? The one who almost blew up with you?”

  “Yes,” Grayson said cautiously.

  “Good you found her,” Lucy said. “Daphne worries about you. So does J.D.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. “Can you see this cell number?”

  “No, you were transferred. Give it to me. I’ll look up the reports and get back to you.”

  He recited his new number, thanked her, and hung up. “She’s ruling Sandoval a homicide. He was doped up on barbiturates, but first he was repeatedly asphyxiated.”

  “Somebody wanted information. Maybe the mystery man making the payoff?”

  “Reasonable assumption,” Grayson said. His phone rang in his hand, startling him. He glanced at the caller ID. Daphne’s cell phone. “Hi, Daphne. What’s going on?”

  “You’ve been summoned,” Daphne informed him. “By Reba McCloud.”

  Rex’s aunt, who ran the family’s charitable foundation. “Why?” he asked.

  “Because Her Highness is not pleased that you’re harassing her nephew and dragging the family name through the mud with your ‘baseless innuendo.’ She wants to have a face-to-face with you, to convince you of the error of your ways.”

  “My innuendo is far from baseless. And it wasn’t innuendo. I called Rex a dirty liar.”

  “Hey, I’m only the messenger. You want her number?” she said and he sighed.

  “Sure.” He repeated it out loud and Paige wrote it down. “I’ll let her vent her spleen. She might even say something I can use against Rex. When and where?”

  “Eleven this morning, at her office downtown. I’ll text you the address.”

  “It’s okay. I know the place. Have you seen Anderson today?”

  “Unfortunately,” she grumbled. “File this, pull that, plead this felon down. Some of these guys are multiple rapists. Makes me sick. I know we’re controlling costs, but you’d think he was writing the checks from his own bank account.”

  Anderson’s bank account. Paige had offered to check the man’s finances, find out if he’d been paid to look the other way on Muñoz. Yesterday, Grayson had declined. Fruit of the poisonous tree. This morning, he’d been tempted to let her do it.

  Funny how nearly getting killed changed a man’s priorities.

  But there still might be a legal way. Now he knew that Anderson was involved in at least one other case of tampering—the release of Cherri Dandridge. One could be coincidence. Two was smoke. A few more cases would produce an honest-to-God fire.

  Then I’d have cause for a warrant. “Daphne, I need to run a query.”

  “I’ll run it for you.”

  “No, it could flag you. Too dangerous. I need my access back.”

  “Not sure I can do that. But what if I got you somebody else’s access?”

  He lifted his brows. “Whose?”

  “Anderson’s.”

  Grayson’s grin was s
harp. “I’d buy you a year’s supply of hair spray.”

  Daphne laughed. “Look for a text. I’ll get you what you need. Just remember the hair spray. Extra volume, extra hold. Extra superglue.”

  He hung up, smiling.

  “You should do that more often,” Paige said quietly. “Smile.”

  “Maybe I will.” He brought her hand to his lips. “I never thanked you for last night.”

  “Which part?” she asked huskily and most of the blood in his head rushed south.

  “All of it,” he said. “But mostly not being shocked about my father.”

  “You can’t control who your parents are. I don’t even know who my father was.”

  “I wish I didn’t.”

  “What happened to your father, if it’s okay to ask?”

  Grayson shrugged. “He was given the death penalty.”

  “Oh. Did he… did they… Is he still alive?”

  “No. He got cancer fifteen years ago. Went fast. I have to say it was a relief.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Your mother?” he asked. “Is she still alive?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said gently. “If only to wish she could have been different.”

  “Sometimes,” she allowed. “But my grandparents loved me. You had your mother and the Carters. The two of us did okay.”

  “You must miss them, your grandparents.”

  “I do. But my friends got me through. Became my family.”

  He glanced at her curiously. “I asked you why you came here if all of your friends were in Minnesota. You said you were suffocating. I understand that now. But why here? I mean, I’m glad you’re here, but why Baltimore?”

  “Because of Clay. I was at loose ends around the holidays last year, feeling sorry for myself. You know. Black belt brought to her knees and all that.”

  “Normal, I’d think,” he said.

  “Perhaps. But unproductive. I was restless and… scared. I kept Peabody close by. I woke up one day and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like who I saw looking back, so I decided to make a change. I didn’t know where I was going. I just started packing when I found the business card Clay had given me at a wedding of some mutual friends, long before last summer. I figured it was fate, knocking me over the head with a two-by-four. I called him to ask for a job and found out his old partner had been killed. He needed a new partner, I needed a new start.” She lifted a shoulder self-consciously. “So I guess I’m here because I was too much of a coward to stay.”

  “You are no coward, Paige Holden.” The words came out far more heated than he’d planned. He calmed his voice. “You might be the bravest person I know, after my own mother.”

  Her dark eyes flashed with emotion. “That’s quite a compliment. Thank you.”

  He kissed her hand again. “You said you knew when I knocked on Rex’s door. I knew when you ran toward Elena. Most people would have run away.” He pulled Joseph’s SUV into the Carters’ drive, then let go of her hand to hit a button on the dashboard that sent the big iron gates swinging open. “Home, sweet home.”

  Paige’s eyes grew huge. “Wow. This is home?”

  The Carter home was a mansion, elegant but not ostentatious. “I remember the first time I saw this place,” Grayson said. “I thought the big house was an apartment building. When my mother told me only one family lived here, I was stunned.”

  “I’m not a small boy and I’m stunned. If I might be so bold, where did the Carters get all this? What does Mr. Carter do?”

  “When he was growing up, he was one of those geeky guys that built stuff in his dad’s garage. He went to MIT, majored in biomedical engineering. His senior project was a new kind of joint for a prosthetic knee. His design won a prize, got bought by an orthopedic company, and they hired him when he graduated. Ten years later he owned the company. Biomedical research is still the core business, but they also do robotics, guidance systems, software development.” Grayson smiled fondly. “And Jack still builds stuff in the garage.”

  He pointed to the garage that could easily house ten cars. “That’s his workshop. The apartment on top is where I grew up. Mom still lives there. We won’t stay long. Just enough for her to be sure I’m really alive. Then I need you to tell me everything you’ve read about Reba McCloud. She’s summoned us.”

  Thursday, April 7, 9:45 a.m.

  His phone rang and he let it go to voice mail. He’d been preparing for what he would do once he arrived in Toronto. They’d land in ten minutes. He was ready.

  Not ecstatic, but ready. Dealing with children was never simple. He needed the little girl alive. The wife could go either way. If she became too much of a liability to bring home, he’d leave her behind. If so, he’d make sure to take a final picture for Silas’s photo album. Because as soon as Silas had taken a shot at him, this had become far more than severing a business association.

  He wanted Silas to suffer.

  He pictured him now, seething because he’d missed, but secure in the knowledge that he could try again undeterred because his family was safe.

  Within an hour, he’d have Silas Dandridge on his knees. Then he’ll come to me.

  His cell had stopped ringing, but started again. He looked at the display and wanted to groan. But of course he did no such thing. “Good morning,” he said briskly.

  “You didn’t answer. You always answer on the first ring.” It was, and always had been, an unwritten rule between them.

  “I was… occupied.”

  “Huh. Well, you don’t need to be occupied on my account. I took care of her.”

  He sat up straighter in his seat. “Who?”

  “Adele Shaffer. You said you would, but you didn’t. So I did. She was the last. Now there’s no one left to tell.”

  He closed his eyes, the vein in his temple throbbing. “What the hell did you do?”

  He could feel the frost coming through the line. “Don’t ever use that tone with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said as sincerely as he could muster. “What did you do?” he repeated, more politely.

  “I stabbed her. She’s dead.”

  His gut began to churn. I do not need this today. “Where? When?”

  “In an alley. And about an hour ago.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Of course not. I moved her car. I took three different taxis back to my own car.”

  “You’re sure she’s dead?”

  “I didn’t wait for them to put her in a body bag, no. But she’d stopped breathing.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “Yes.”

  His blood ran cold. “But you’re not sure she’s dead?”

  “She was dead. Trust me. I’ve done this enough to know.”

  And I’ve cleaned up enough of your messes to know better. Two times out of every three, your victim wasn’t dead. He could only pray that Adele Shaffer would be among the one-third that died without his assistance.

  “Did you go back and see if she’d been taken anywhere?” he asked.

  “Return to the scene of the crime?” The wry amusement in the question had him wincing. “I’m not stupid.” There was a slight pause. “Excellent. They’re here.”

  He leaned forward. He could hear sirens in the background. “What’s happening?”

  “Ambulance and two squad cars. She’s done, too.”

  Too? Holy shit. “Who? Where are you?”

  “Sitting down the street from Betsy Malone’s house.”

  He kept his tone level. “What have you done?”

  “Made certain she wouldn’t air any more secrets. Which you should have done last night. You haven’t been very successful lately, have you?”

  The churning in his stomach increased, but he kept his voice cool. “On the contrary. Things are going pretty much as I planned.”

  “So the prosecutor is dead?” Amusement became contempt. “Oh wait. He’s not.”r />
  He clenched his teeth. “He will be. For now, let him gnaw on Rex for a little while. I have some pressing matters to attend to.”

  “You go tend to your ‘pressing matters.’ I, for one, have checked off the items on my to-do list. I think I’m up for a round of golf. If you want to know where to find the prosecutor and his PI at this very moment, just ask.”

  “Where?” he asked, keeping his anger in check. “Where are they now?”

  “On their way to see Reba. She called them in.”

  He said nothing for a moment, calculating the outcomes in his mind. “She’ll defend Rex. Uphold the family. Not a game changer.”

  “I know. But if you want to finish the job you left undone, they’ll be leaving there soon. Have a great day.”

  The connection was broken and he sat staring at the phone in his hand. Reba. I should have expected that. But there was little to worry about. Reba was like tofu. Soundless, colorless. She was a placeholder. Grayson Smith would learn nothing more than that the McCloud family was above reproach in every way.

  Which would further strengthen Smith’s resolve to see Rex pay for the murder of Crystal Jones. Then this matter would be put to rest.

  Nineteen

  Thursday, April 7, 9:45 a.m.

  “Are you certain, Detective Mazzetti?” Lieutenant Hyatt asked.

  Stevie stood with Hyatt and IA’s Gutierrez in Silas’s living room as IA detectives searched the Dandridge house. She could hear the strain in her boss’s normally caustic voice. This wasn’t easy for him, either. Hyatt had trusted Silas. As did I.

  She still wanted to believe they were wrong. That Silas had been framed. But now that she knew, so many little things made more sense. Silas had been so good at finding evidence that no one else had seen. They’d called him “the Finder.”

  So was she sure? She didn’t want to be. But she was.

  “Yes. Grayson Smith and I came to identical conclusions via separate paths.”

  Grayson had been shaken by the discovery. As am I. She was holding it together, but only by picturing Delgado’s body in his tub, his blood and brains all over the Dora the Explorer wallpaper. Silas. How could you?

  His house was empty. No suitcases appeared to have been packed, the family vehicles still in the garage. With the exception of no dead man in the tub, the house felt exactly like the Delgado house. Vacated hastily. Deliberately.