A Killing At The Track (The Jeri Howard Series Book 9)

by Janet Dawson

  “Hi,” she said. “Are you the one who called about the vacancy?”

  “Sorry, no.” I moved toward her. “You’re the manager?”

  “Yes, Rhonda Attwood’s the name. Someone called about a vacancy an hour ago, then never showed up. I can’t wait any longer. I have an appointment.” She pulled a key ring from the bag and unlocked the driver’s side door of the Jeep.

  “I’m trying to locate one of your tenants, a man named Deakin Kelley. He’s a jockey who rides at Edgewater Downs.”

  She smiled in a way that told me she wasn’t immune to Deakin’s charm. “Oh, yes. He’s a nice guy. You tried his cottage?”

  “He’s not there.”

  She opened the car door, but didn’t get in. “Well, I haven’t seen him since last night.”

  “Early or late?” I asked.

  Rhonda Attwood shot me a look full of unspoken curiosity. “Seven, maybe a little after.”

  So, I thought, she’d seen Deakin coming home from the Backstretch. But her next words torpedoed that theory. “I glanced out the window and saw Deakin coming out of his cottage. He got into his car and drove away. Haven’t seen him since.” She frowned. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Most likely there was, but I didn’t want to go into detail.

  “Well, I just wondered,” she said. “I saw his face in the porch light, and it seemed to me he looked stressed out. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “It’s very important that I talk with him,” I told her, avoiding her question. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll wait a little while and see if he shows up.”

  She shrugged, then climbed into the Jeep. “Suit yourself. You can wait on the porch. I’ve got people to see and errands to run.”

  I watched Rhonda Attwood back her vehicle from its parking space next to the hotel. She headed down the sloping driveway, then out of sight. I had no intention of waiting on the porch. Instead I glanced around, didn’t see anyone, then quickly walked toward the row of cottages and around the back.

  I slipped on the pair of latex gloves I kept in my purse for just such occasions. Then I scanned the area again. The houses in the nearby subdivision were far enough away that I hoped I wouldn’t be observed. As it turned out, it didn’t take much time for me to get through the spring lock on the door.

  Once inside Deakin’s cottage, I looked around, getting my bearings. The place had a look of transience. The kitchen was basic, furnished with the usual appliances and a small square wooden table with two chairs. A doorway directly ahead opened onto the living room, which held a sofa, a recliner, several tables, and a TV and VCR on a stand. A table at the end of the sofa held an expensive-looking CD and tape player, as well as a neat stack of CDs. On the table at the other end of the sofa I saw a handful of paperbacks, some novels, others nonfiction.

  Another doorway to the right led back to the bathroom and bedroom. The queen-sized bed didn’t look as though it had been slept in last night. Deakin’s clothes were still in the closet. There was a cordless phone stuck into a base on the nightstand, next to a five-by-seven-inch color photo of Molly. Nate Abernathy had said Deakin had voice mail, rather than an answering machine. That meant I’d have to have his password in order to get into his messages.

  I picked up the phone. It had a redial button, so I pressed it, listening as the electronic tones sounded eleven times. That told me Deakin’s last call from the instrument had been long distance. The phone rang on the end several times, then it was picked up. I heard a woman’s voice identifying herself as Ginny Kelley. She invited me to leave a message after the beep. I didn’t.

  So Deakin had called his sister in Georgia. Unfortunately, the phone couldn’t tell me when he’d made the call, or if he’d connected with her at all.

  I sat on the bed and opened the drawers of the nightstand, sifting through its contents, looking for an address book. If Deakin had one, perhaps he’d taken it with him. I shut the drawers with a sigh. The whole place had an air of impermanence about it

  I heard a car’s engine coming up the driveway to the hotel. I quickly replaced the phone in its cradle and crossed to the bedroom window that looked out on the parking lot, moving one slat of the miniblinds so I could see the vehicle. A sedan, with four doors, but the color could have been blue or gray. It came to a stop in front of the cottage, at a diagonal that should have given me a clear view of whoever was in the front seat. But the sun hit the side window at such an angle that the glare bounced back, masking the identity of the person at the wheel. Then the driver’s door opened, and I caught a glimpse of dark blue material, a pant leg above a lace-up oxford.

  Was the driver Detective Maltesta of the Fremont Police Department? He’d been wearing a navy blue suit this morning. Or was it Deakin Kelley, dressed more formally than usual?

  Either way, I couldn’t take any chances at being discovered, here where I wasn’t supposed to be.

  Quickly, I retraced my steps through the living room and the kitchen, eased out the back door, and headed downhill, past the back doors of the other cottages and around the end to the parking lot. Once I was back to the relative safety of my Toyota, I slumped down in the seat and dug into the glove compartment for my binoculars.

  Whoever had gotten out of the car had either entered the cottage or walked around to the back, as I had. In the magnified view of my binoculars, the car was definitely a steely blue, and the make was a Ford Taurus. I could see most of the license plate number. It didn’t look like it belonged to the Fremont Police Department.

  But I wasn’t sure until I saw the cottage door open half an hour later.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  DEAKIN KELLEY STEPPED OUT OF THE COTTAGE, PULLING the door shut behind him. He’d been inside long enough to make a few phone calls. If he’d done so, I hoped that one of those calls was to Molly Torrance.

  He’d changed clothes. Instead of the dark blue pants and lace-up oxfords I’d glimpsed earlier, he now wore khaki slacks and a burgundy crew-neck sweater. Over the sweater was a jacket with a zipper, in a darker shade of brown. A pair of brown suede walking shoes finished the ensemble. Through the lens of the binoculars I examined his face. He looked tired, and his shoulders slumped inside the loose-fitting jacket.

  He got into the Ford and started the engine. Then he backed the car away from the cottage and turned, heading down the driveway that led from the hotel lot to the subdivision. Once he reached Mission Boulevard, he turned left, heading southeast. I followed him, staying back and hoping he wouldn’t notice me.

  He turned right on Stevenson Boulevard, heading toward Lake Elizabeth in Fremont’s Central Park. On the side of the road opposite the park, the buildings were a mix of residential and commercial. Past the park, Deakin turned right onto Leslie Street. Several blocks later he parked the car at the curb and got out. I quickly pulled into a parking spot a few car lengths back and watched as Deakin walked toward a long one-story stucco building.

  The structure had a pale green paint job that had seen better days, faded as it was by sun, rain, and a coating of grime. There was a wooden sign next to the front door but I couldn’t make it out, since it was obscured by a thicket of rhododendrons that badly needed pruning. A couple of minutes later a middle-aged couple left the building and walked in my direction. They got into the sedan parked in front of my Toyota. After they’d pulled out into the traffic lane, I moved my car forward. Now I could see part of the sign. It read LESLIE MANOR.

  What the hell was Leslie Manor? I jotted down the address and waited. No one else entered or exited the building. Deakin was inside for twenty-five minutes. When he came out, he didn’t look any more invigorated than he had when he left his cottage. He was holding what looked like a standard letter-sized manila folder. He tossed it onto the passenger seat when he got into the Ford.

  We were on the move again. A series of turns put us on Fremont Boulevard, heading past the Hub shopping center. Our next stop was in the vicinity of Washington
High School. This time the building looked a little better, blue and white with redwood trim and a high redwood fence around it. There was a small parking lot on the side of the building, next to a freestanding sign that told me this was the Ridgecrest Convalescent Hospital.

  A nursing home, I thought. Who was Deakin visiting in a nursing home?

  As I watched him enter the blue and white building, my stomach growled, reminding me it had been many hours since I’d consumed breakfast, around four-thirty this morning before leaving for the track. By now it was close to noon. There was a burger joint a block away. I looked at the sign longingly, the thought of a cheeseburger with fries making my mouth water.

  But I didn’t dare leave, for fear of losing Deakin when he came out of the nursing home. I dug into the glove compartment and came up with a couple of granola bars that had been in there so long they’d lost whatever flavor they once had. Hungry as I was, I washed them down with the bottle of water I always keep in my car.

  Deakin was inside longer this time, thirty minutes, according to my watch. When he came out he was carrying another folder. He piloted the Ford out of the nursing home’s parking lot and turned left onto Fremont Boulevard, retracing his earlier route until he got to Mowry Avenue. Now he turned right and headed toward the bay. Once we crossed Interstate 880 we were in Newark. Just past Newpark Mall, Deakin turned right on Cedar Boulevard. A mile or so later he drove into the parking lot in front of what I guessed was yet another nursing home. This one looked newer and fancier than the other two. It had well-kept grounds and its front sidewalk was shaded by a couple of oak trees. The place was named, appropriately enough, the Twin Oaks Living Center.

  I angled my Toyota into a curbside spot not far from where Deakin parked, at the end of the row of cars closest to the building. He didn’t get out of the Ford right away. Instead he sat with his head bowed over the steering wheel, as though he had to gather his strength to move at all. Then he opened the driver’s side door and swung his legs out onto the pavement.

  As soon as he was inside the building, I got out of my Toyota and stretched. I needed a bathroom, which was always a problem on surveillance. I looked at my watch. It was past two. Deakin had been on the move for almost two hours since we’d left the Belvoir Springs Hotel.

  He’d been inside the other two nursing homes for about half an hour each time. I debated whether to go inside the building in search of a rest room. I was afraid I might miss Deakin’s departure, or worse, come face-to-face with him. In the end my bladder won out. And luck was with me. Just to the right of the foyer I spotted a door marked LADIES. I dodged inside and used the facilities.

  I had just come out into the corridor and was picking up a brochure about the Twin Oaks Center when I saw Deakin and another man step through a doorway at the far end of the hallway. I slipped out the front door and headed for the parking lot, standing between a van and a truck in the row of vehicles behind the one where Deakin had parked the Ford.

  I examined the brochure, a three-fold glossy that told me the Twin Oaks Living Center provided a “complete spectrum of assisted living services for seniors, twenty-four hour personalized care, and a specialized program for patients with Alzheimer’s and senile dementia.”

  Surely there was a story here, but I’d have to get it from Deakin. I stuck the brochure in my purse and waited.

  It was another fifteen minutes before Deakin exited the building and headed for the Ford. I moved to intercept him. He didn’t realize he had company until he reached the car. He had a large envelope in his right hand, no doubt more detailed information concerning the Twin Oaks Living Center. He switched the envelope from his right to his left, then stuck the free hand into the pocket of his slacks, reaching for his keys. Only then did he sense my presence. He turned to face me, his expression startled until he recognized me.

  “Nursing homes?” I asked.

  Deakin’s bright blue eyes were rimmed with red, as though he hadn’t slept much, and there were shadows underneath. As weary as he looked, he still summoned a flash of anger. “You’ve been following me.”

  I acknowledged the obvious with a nod. “I’ve been trying to figure out where you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours.”

  “What business is that of yours?” The anger flared higher. His hand tightened on the key ring and he glared at me.

  “Better me,” I told him, “than Detective Eddy Maltesta of the Fremont Police Department.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he shot back.

  “Benita Pascal’s dead. Molly and I found her body this morning in one of the stalls on the Torrance shedrow.”

  Deakin’s face went white and his lips compressed into a tense line. “You think I killed her?” he asked finally.

  “You may have been last person to see her alive.”

  “And since I’m the guy who threatened to wring Junior Barnstable’s neck earlier this year,” he said bitterly, “right before he got killed, of course I’m the prime suspect in this one too. Well, I didn’t kill Benita. And what makes you think I was the last person she was with?”

  I suppressed the twinge I felt when he mentioned wringing necks, since that was exactly how Benita had died. “Benita called me last night. She asked me to meet her at a coffee shop in Fremont. When she didn’t show, I went over to the Backstretch. The bartender said you and Benita had been there, along with Zeke Ramos. Reggie Trask was there with Dick Moody. Trask told me that you and Benita left about six-thirty or a quarter to seven. And that he thought you’d headed over to the track.”

  Deakin shook his head. “Where did he get that idea? I said goodbye to Benita in the parking lot. And it was twenty minutes after six. I looked at my watch. I got back to my place at six-forty.”

  “Did Benita say where she was going?”

  “Only that she had things to do. And no, she didn’t tell me what. Presumably she was on her way over to see you.” He glared at me. “Are we finished with the interrogation?”

  “Not quite. You left your cottage around seven. Where did you go?”

  “None of your damn business,” he snapped, anger moving to the fore.

  “Give me a break, Deakin. Think about how it looks. Benita Pascal’s a corpse over at the county morgue. You may have been one of the last people to see her alive, and this morning you weren’t where you were supposed to be. Which was at the track, exercising that horse for Molly. And Nate had several possible rides lined up for you today. You never showed, and the cops are just as curious as I am. Besides, Molly and Nate are worried about you. Both of them said it wasn’t like you not to call.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath as he ducked his head. “I completely forgot. About exercising the horse. About everything. I got the call and —”

  “What’s going on, Deakin? Where have you been?”

  He brought his head up again and the bags under his eyes looked more pronounced. “It was a family emergency.”

  I thought back to what I’d learned from my background search on Deakin Kelley. His mother was dead. That left the father and the sister. There was something about the father, something I’d read in one of the newspaper articles concerning the Barnstable murder. But at the moment it eluded me.

  “I caught a flight out of the San José airport,” Deakin was saying now. “I just got back this morning.”

  “Your sister’s in Georgia, according to the area code preceding her phone number,” I pointed out, skepticism showing on my face. “You couldn’t have flown to Georgia and back here since last night.”

  He rubbed his chin with his free hand. “I’m not making sense,” he said, more to himself than to me.

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “Try a little harder.”

  His eyes narrowed and he fired his next words right at me. “I wasn’t expecting to wind up on your grill.”

  “As I said earlier, better me than Eddy Maltesta. His grill’s a lot hotter than mine. He’s the detective in charge of in
vestigating the Pascal homicide.”

  The mention of Benita’s murder seemed to focus Deakin on his alibi. “I didn’t fly to Georgia. I flew to Burbank. I barely made the seven-forty flight. I’ve got the damn ticket stub to prove it.”

  “Save the ticket stub for the cops. What prompted this trip to the Southland?”

  “My father. He’s in a nursing home in Glendale.”

  “You’re planning to move him to a nursing home up here?” That would explain the visits over the past couple of hours. But it didn’t exactly constitute an emergency.

  “I don’t have a choice,” Deakin said with a grim smile. “When I got back to my place last night, I had a voice mail message from the manager of the nursing home in Glendale. They’re kicking the old man out. I went steaming out of here headed for the airport, planning to catch the first flight I could get to Burbank or LAX. I thought if I got down there and talked with the staff... Hell.” He raked his fingers through his short brown hair. “I might as well have saved my breath, and the airfare. I have three days to find another place that will take him.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He took his time answering. “Did Molly tell you anything about my father?”

  I shook my head. “I only know he’s still living.”

  “If you could call it that,” Deakin said. “He’s got Alzheimer’s.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I meant it. I had a friend whose father had fallen victim to the disease. He’d gone from talking with people in the present to talking with people in the past. Finally he’d stopped talking altogether, before he died. The five years he’d lived in that other place in his mind had taken a heavy toll on my friend and her family.