Too Big to Die

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  With another idea in my head, I returned to the table. Sitting down, I quickly typed something, then closed down my laptop. “I just told Marigold to run a search on Jordon West,” I told Greg. “He might be able to lead us to Holly.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  I held out my hand to Greg and he put his into mine. It was warm and strong. “I know this is going to bother you until it’s resolved,” I told him. “It’s going to bother both of us. So how about I snoop around at that mail place tomorrow while you’re at work? You never know what I might be able to shake loose.”

  He added his other hand to mine and gave it a squeeze. “I don’t know, sweetheart. We don’t know what’s behind Burt’s death. Until we do, it may be dangerous.”

  “I’ll just ask a few questions. Tell them I’m Holly’s aunt or something and see if they buy it. Who knows, she might even come in to collect her mail.”

  “What about the police?” he asked.

  “What about them?” I asked in return. “They probably have as much information as we do or should have, which isn’t much. So it’s not like we’re withholding anything. If something new comes up, we’ll call them.”

  “I guess asking a few questions won’t hurt, although it might spook her if they tell her someone was asking about her.” He removed his hands from mine, picked up his phone again, and placed a call.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked him.

  “My cleaning crew,” he said. “I just realized they will come in tonight to clean the shop and see that puddle of blood. I don’t want them blindsided by it.”

  “Should you maybe hire a special cleaner for that?” I asked. The people who cleaned Greg’s shop also cleaned most of the other stores in the strip mall, along with several others in the area. The cleaning company actually had several crews that worked at night cleaning local businesses on a rotation. They took care of Ocean Breeze, dusting and wiping down machines and counters, washing floors, and scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen once a week every Monday. In between, Greg and his employees took care of the trash and kept things tidy. Some of the businesses used the cleaning company more than once a week.

  Greg shook his head. “I think they’ve had experience with stuff like this before, but I’ll let Jaime make the call on how to handle it.”

  While he placed the call and chatted with Jaime Morales, the owner of the cleaning company, I decided to get ready for bed. It was still pretty early, but I was exhausted. After a quick look in on Dumpster, I went to our master suite and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on a nightgown. Muffin was already curled up on our bed when I finished. I slipped between the sheets, nudging the bed-hogging cat with one leg until she moved enough for me to stretch out. I’d been settled for about ten minutes with my Kindle, although I was having trouble keeping my mind on my reading, when Wainwright trotted in with Greg rolling in behind him.

  “I was right,” he said. “Jaime says he has two guys who are trained in hazard cleanup. He’ll send one over with the usual crew tonight to clean up the blood.”

  Greg likes to watch the evening news when we get ready for bed, but we were tucking in much earlier than usual tonight. He aimed the remote at the TV mounted on the wall across from our bed, then seemed to think twice about it. He tossed the remote on the bed. It landed near me. “How about finding us a movie to watch tonight while I get ready for bed?” he suggested. “A stupid movie that will make us laugh.”

  I had a couple of choices ready when he finished cleaning up and slid into bed next to me. Instead of starting one of the movies, I turned to him. “I really want to stake out the mailbox place tomorrow, Greg.”

  He turned his upper body so that he was facing me. With a couple of fingers, he pushed a thick clump of my hair away from my face. “Instead, why don’t you do what Steele suggested and call Zee and plan something with her?”

  “You don’t think I can handle talking to a couple of people without you?” I narrowed my eyes at him, which made him laugh. Not the response I was hoping for.

  “It’s not that, sweetheart. It’s just that we’ve had a couple of really bad days in a row. Hell, if I didn’t have so much going on at the shop, I’d play hooky and do something fun with you.” He leaned over and kissed me. “Call Zee and have some fun with her. Have you even told her about what happened at the office yet?”

  I hadn’t and knew she would be unhappy not being one of the first to hear it. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. It wasn’t too late to call the Washington home. Picking up my cell phone, which was on the nightstand charging, I called Zee and made a date for lunch. She was thrilled, and since I normally didn’t work on Tuesdays, she didn’t ask why I had the day off. I could also tell by our short chat that she hadn’t seen any news reports of Burt getting shot in front of Greg’s shop. I decided to save that conversation for tomorrow.

  “There,” Greg said after I ended the call. “Don’t you feel better already?” He aimed the remote at the TV and started one of the movies I’d picked out—a buddy road trip movie that never failed to amuse us. We’d seen it so many times that between the two of us, we could probably recite the entire dialog.

  “Yes,” I admitted as I snuggled next to Greg. “You and Zee are the two people in the entire world who can always make me feel better.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Not your mother?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Humph,” I said with mock disgust. “You’re funnier than the movie.”

  eleven

  Zee’s fancy Mercedes sedan was in the shop, so I drove to Newport Beach and picked her up for our lunch date. We decided to go to one of our favorite places in Laguna Beach that overlooked the ocean. There were also a lot of shops along PCH—Pacific Coast Highway—where we could wander after, providing it wasn’t too hot.

  On my drive from Seal Beach to Newport Beach to pick up Zee, I was half kicking myself for making the lunch date. What I’d said to Greg last night was true. Next to him, Zee was the one person who could bring me comfort and calm me down, but now I was antsy to talk to the people at Holly’s mailbox place and even antsier to speak to Jordon West, her father. The search results had come in from Marigold during the night, and I’d read them over breakfast after returning from a morning walk with Wainwright. Greg seemed to have forgotten about my ordering the report on Jordon. He was anxious to get to work after losing more than half a day the day before, and he wanted his world set right again for his clients and his employees. He’d kissed me goodbye and bundled Wainwright into the van almost as soon as we’d returned from our walk.

  There were about a dozen Jordon Wests living in Southern California. To narrow them down, I made the assumption that the Jordon West I was looking for might be about Greg’s age, give or take a few years. That left me with two candidates. If neither panned out, then I’d widen the net a bit on the age. The same went for geographic choices. Just because the Jordon West I was looking for lived locally over twenty years ago didn’t mean he still did. We live in a mobile society, with people following jobs and significant others to new locations all the time. Of the two hopeful candidates, one lived in Costa Mesa, the small city wedged between Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. The condo I owned before marrying Greg had been located in Costa Mesa, right on the border with Newport Beach. The other lived in Westminster, a city not far away that bordered Huntington Beach.

  The one in Costa Mesa was about fifty years old and had teacher listed as his occupation. The photo that came with the report showed a man with a thin, angular face and small eyes, and must be fairly current as the man in the photo matched the given age. The report gave his address and phone number, and also noted that he was married with two sons in their twenties. The Jordon West in Westminster had nothing listed for his work. His age was listed as fifty-two, but the photo was of a man who appeared to be much younger, barely college age. I found it odd that there wasn�
�t a more current photo. Nor was there any work history or family information, not even a phone number. Either way, I planned on tracking down both. Something about Westminster nagged at me, but I couldn’t quite place why.

  Zee and I were almost done with our lunch by the time I’d filled her in on everything that had happened since I’d last spoken with her. We’d both ordered salads. She’d had the chicken salad with cranberries and goat cheese, and I’d had a Chinese chicken salad with teriyaki dressing, mandarin orange slices, and crispy wontons. For dessert we were splitting a piece of key lime cheesecake. I put the first bite of the pale green goodness into my mouth and moaned. “Gawd, that’s good. Perfect for a hot day.”

  We were on the patio of the restaurant but were shielded from the sun by a large awning. A soft breeze came in off the ocean, giving welcome relief from the heat.

  Using her fork, Zee snagged a bite of the cheesecake. She’d been unusually quiet during my narrative of the past few days. “I don’t know,” she finally said just before the bite landed between her full, glossy lips, “which event to comment on first.” She clamped down on the dessert, chewed slowly, and swallowed. If she didn’t hustle, my stress-eating habit might inhale the remainder of the cheesecake before she got to her second bite.

  With great restraint, I put my fork down and turned my head toward the sea. The sky was such a bright blue, it didn’t look real—a color someone chose from a paint chip and splashed across the sky with abandon, without any shading or blending. Even the tint of my sunglasses didn’t diminish the clarity of the color. I have a pair of topaz earrings this shade of blue. Greg bought them for my birthday a few years back. Come to think of it, the stones were called sky blue topaz.

  I heard “Earth to Odelia,” the words digging through my random thoughts like a shovel until they hit pay dirt in my brain. I turned to find Zee looking at me, her large brown eyes wide with worry as they peered at me over the top rim of her sunglasses. “Are you okay?” she asked once she had my attention.

  I nodded. “Yes, I’m okay.” I picked up my fork and, using its side, sliced off another bite of cheesecake. “Steele is pretty sure this will all blow over and I’ll be back at my desk next week or the week after, although Greg isn’t keen on me going back. He’s not happy with the way they’re handling this and thinks maybe it’s time for me to make a change.”

  “Do you want to make a change?” she asked.

  I popped the bite of cheesecake into my mouth. Unlike the other bites, this one tasted sour and gummy on my tongue, its original wonderful flavor turned rancid by my concerns. I put my fork down and took a drink of my iced tea to rinse away the bad flavor. “I don’t know,” I said, and was surprised by how weary my voice sounded to my own ears. Why I was surprised was a surprise in itself. Since this chain of events began on Saturday, I hadn’t slept well, yet it wasn’t until this very moment, sitting here in the warm sun with my best friend, that I felt my body sag like a sack of dirty laundry. I beat back my weariness with an imaginary bat. I had things to do after lunch.

  After Greg had left this morning, I ran a Marigold report on Burt Sandoval. Funny how in all the hullabaloo over Holly West, we’d forgotten him, the dead guy. His report was longer than either Holly’s or her father’s. He lived in Torrance, a small city a few miles north of Long Beach. He was divorced and the father of two boys and a girl, all grown. The report didn’t list their whereabouts. Burt was originally from Santa Rosa, and it looked like he’d been down in Southern California since his divorce five years ago. According to the report, he was forty-eight years old—a year younger than Greg, although he looked older. The report listed that Burt worked for a company called Church Construction, also located in Torrance. Given Burt’s substantial size and strength, I could see him easily working in that field, but it raised another question. If he was employed, what was he doing meeting up with Greg in the middle of a Monday? Perhaps they couldn’t work in the oppressive heat. I’d made a note to contact someone at Church Construction when I had the chance. It went on my mental to-do list, right along with contacting Jordon West one and two.

  “I’ve lost you again,” I heard Zee say. “You’ve been staring at that cheesecake like you half expected it to grow legs and scoot off the table.”

  I looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Zee. I guess I’m not very good company today.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, dismissing my weak apology. “You have important, pressing things on your mind. Are you really worried about your job or is it something else—that girl, maybe? Are you worried that she might be Greg’s daughter?”

  A short, sharp snort escaped my lips. “All of the above, although it really wouldn’t be a problem for me if Holly did turn out to be Greg’s daughter. Weird, yes, but not really a problem, unless she’s some kind of psycho.”

  “Like if she were the one who shot Burt?” Zee suggested. I’d told her about the accusation in the YouTube comments.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I admitted. “We have a lot of possibilities. She could have been there stalking Greg and taking the video or maybe she was stalking Burt and was the one who pulled the trigger.” I paused, my mind travelling to my memories of mixed horror and odd affection for Elaine Powers, a notorious hitwoman who went by the street name of Mother. “You know, like Mother.”

  Zee took a very deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “Like you need another hitwoman in your life.” Zee had never understood my feelings for Elaine. I barely understood them myself. But in spite of her murderous ways, I’d actually liked her. Not how she made her living, of course, but her, the person she truly was under all that crime.

  “I doubt Holly West is a hitwoman,” I said. “She could be, but I doubt it. She appears to be more the type to hunt and shoot people with her camera.” I paused and looked back out at the beach. A tall shirtless man was walking his dog, a rambunctious, large puppy, who didn’t care about the heat, just chasing the waves and the gulls. “But the question is, was Holly there to film Greg or Burt? Or was she there stalking Marla Kingston? She had several videos of events featuring the Kingstons.”

  “Let me come with you,” Zee said, surprising me.

  “What?” Now it was my turn to peek over the top rim of my sunglasses.

  “Let me come with you,” she repeated.

  “Where?”

  Zee’s sunglasses were still halfway down her nose. Over them, she rolled her large eyes at me like I was having a senior moment. “You know, when you investigate.”

  “What makes you think I’m investigating anything?” I asked with firmness. I received another eye roll, this one more pronounced.

  I picked up my glass of iced tea, took a long drink from the straw, and paused before answering. “Okay, it’s true,” I finally confessed. “I do plan on checking out a few people who might be able to give me some information. Might as well make use of my time since I can’t go to the office, and since this woman has some long ago possible tie to Greg, even indirectly, I want to know more about her.”

  “I knew it,” Zee said. She pushed her sunglasses back up the bridge of her nose and gave me a smug smile, then dug back into the cheesecake.

  While she went back to chowing down on the dessert, I studied my best friend. She and I are about the same size and age. Her skin is the color of fine dark chocolate. Her eyes, two deep pools of chocolate pudding, dance when she’s amused and shoot killer lasers when she’s angry. In the last year she’d started cropping her tightly curled hair close to her scalp and stopped coloring it. It was now a soft, cushy salt-and-pepper carpet. I’d happily take a bullet for her if I had to, which brought me to my next concern.

  “Seth doesn’t like it when you play detective with me,” I said. It was the truth. A few years back, Zee’s husband had all but put our relationship in a timeout because of flying bullets.

  She put down her fork and dabbed her mouth in a ladylike manne
r with her linen napkin. Then she stared at me with those laser eyes of hers. I looked down at her mouth, pursed now like a plump cherry. When wiping her mouth, she hadn’t smudged a bit of her lipstick. I’ve always marveled at women who could do that. They can eat and drink and wipe their mouths, all without mussing their lip gloss. If I’m not careful, after I eat I look like a clown who put on his lip color while drunk. I looked up again. The lasers were gone. Her dark eyes were now wet.

  “What’s the matter, Zee?” I asked with concern. “Does it really mean that much to you to come with me?”

  She nodded a little, then switched gears, her head now going side to side. “It’s not to help you, Odelia, although I do want to do that. It’s for me.” A single tear ran down one plump cheek. “I’ve been banished from my grandbaby!” More tears flowed. She picked up her napkin and dabbed at them on her cheeks and under her sunglasses without removing them.

  “What do you mean banished?” Hannah, Zee’s daughter, had given birth to an adorable baby girl the summer before. It was Seth and Zee’s first grandchild, and Zee was spending almost as much time on the East Coast with Hannah and her husband as here with Seth. The news of her exile wasn’t a complete surprise. Zee was a super mom and sometimes a helicopter mom and sometimes simply too much of a mom, even to me. They also had a son, Jacob, who was attending law school at Stanford. “Who put the travel ban on you going east? Hannah or Seth?”

  Zee sniffed and tilted her head slightly to indicate indignation. Her mouth was tight. “Both. They called it an intervention,” she said sharply. “Like I was some sort of drug addict. Can you imagine that?”

  I was about to say something unpopular. I paused, weighing my options, but couldn’t help myself. Zee and I have always been brutally honest with each other. After taking a deep breath, I said, “Yes, I can.” In spite of the look of horror she gave me, I continued. “Zee, you raised a lovely, smart, strong daughter. She and her husband can handle the baby, and if they can’t, they’re also smart enough to ask for help, don’t you think?”