She took my arm. I tried to twitch out of her grasp, but my coordination was shot all to hell. “Don’t wanna go upstairs. Wanna see Mond... Mend... Jaime.”
“She wants to see Jaime,” Farley’s voice said, from far, far away.
“Then by all means, let her see the detective.” Martha guided me over to a door in the side wall. She opened it and gave me a push. I stumbled forward, into darkness, and that’s the last thing I remember.
Chapter 20
WHEN I WOKE up, it was later.
I’m not sure how much later. Could have been thirty minutes, could have been a day.
I was in a safe. Not a small one, like David had at the office. More like a vault. Seven by ten, maybe. Steel walls covered with shelves. Files. And Jaime Mendoza, gray as a ghost, leaning over me. He was slapping my cheek, over and over again. Not very hard, probably because he wasn’t feeling that good himself. I tried to feel grateful, but it was hard.
“Ow,” I said weakly.
He sat back. Or slumped, against the wall. “Good. You’re alive.”
“Was there any doubt?”
I could talk again. Excellent.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” Mendoza said.
“Never mind me.” He looked awful. “What happened to you?”
“Martha hit me over the head with a trophy,” Mendoza said.
A trophy? “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head, and must have thought better of it, because he winced. “I was sitting there, talking to Farley. She comes in, walks over to the console table, picks up a big, crystal trophy, walks back to me, and whacks me with it. I’m lucky she didn’t bash my brains out.”
“Let me see.” I pushed off against the floor and managed to get to my knees. My head was still swimming, but at least I could speak and think mostly clearly.
Mendoza bent his head obediently, and I peered at the back of his head.
“Yep. Big bump here.” I probed it, ignoring his yelp of pain. “I don’t feel anything moving, so I don’t think she cracked your skull. Do you see double?”
“No,” Mendoza said. “She’s an older woman. She probably didn’t hit as hard as she thought she did.”
Maybe not. Or maybe she’d only planned to knock him out instead of kill him.
“What are they going to do with us?”
“Dunno,” Mendoza said. “They shoved me in here right away. I was still unconscious. I didn’t hear them discuss it.”
I hadn’t, either.
He added, “What happened to you?”
“Something in the tea. Whatever it was, it knocked me out. Quickly.” I glanced at his wrist, where that expensive Rolex was still strapped. “How long have we been here?”
“It’s been a few hours. It’s almost six o’clock.”
“They’re probably waiting for it to get dark before they take us out of here.”
Mendoza nodded, carefully. “Probably planning to bury us somewhere, or pitch us in the river, or something.”
He sounded remarkably calm about it.
“You don’t sound very upset by the idea,” I said. “Do you have a plan?”
He smiled. “No. But every day I strap on my gun, I know it could be my last.”
“Speaking of your gun...”
“They took it,” Mendoza said.
Of course they had. So now Martha and Farley had a gun, but we didn’t. Wonderful.
I looked around the room. Files, and more files. “Is there anything in here we can attack them with when they come for us?”
“I haven’t checked,” Mendoza said, “but it looks like just paperwork.”
It did. I suppose we might overwhelm them with files, and make a break for it while they batted them away, but it didn’t seem like a very well thought-out plan.
“Anyway,” Mendoza added, subsiding back against the wall, “they may not come for us.”
I turned to look at him. “What do you mean, they may not come for us? I thought we agreed they were waiting for darkness to pitch us in the river.”
“They could just leave us here a couple of days,” Mendoza said. “Nobody’s gonna come to our rescue. Nobody knows we’re here. And the place is soundproof, so even if someone showed up, they wouldn’t hear us call for help.”
“We won’t starve in a couple of days.”
“No,” Mendoza said, “but we’ll run out of air long before that.”
I stared at him, wide-eyed, and he added, “This room isn’t just soundproof. It’s sealed. No air in, no air out. When we run out, we die.”
For a moment, a long moment, I was too appalled to speak. Then I got my voice to cooperate. “They wouldn’t do that to us!”
Mendoza arched his brows.
“It’s messy,” I said. “They’d have to deal with two dead bodies. I don’t think they’d want to do that.”
“At this point,” Mendoza told me, “I’m not sure what they’d do. I didn’t think Mrs. Hollingsworth would hit me over the head with her husband’s golf trophy, either.”
Well, no. I hadn’t seen that one coming, either. “They’re not young, though. And neither of them is in particularly good shape. It would be much easier to wait until we both come to—like, now—and until it’s dark, so none of the neighbors notice anything, and then tie us up and take us out to one of the cars and murder us somewhere else. Nothing to point to them.”
Mendoza shrugged. He didn’t argue, though, so I guess he saw my point.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” I asked. “I’m a little confused, to be honest.”
Mendoza grimaced. “I wasn’t able to get a whole lot of information out of Farley before his wife whacked me with the crystal, but I think I’ve got most of it.”
“Then please, elucidate me. All I know is that Martha says Farley wasn’t cheating on her.”
“I don’t think he was,” Mendoza said.
“So how do you explain Shelby? I realize you didn’t meet her, but you can take my word for it: other than Jacquie, I’ve never seen anyone who looked more like a mistress.”
Mendoza managed a smile, but it looked like it cost him. I really didn’t like his color. He was much too pale, the usually golden skin having taken on a distinctly greenish cast.
“You’re not going to throw up,” I asked suspiciously, “are you?”
He closed his eyes. “Not if I can help it.”
“But you’re nauseous?”
“I think I might have a slight concussion,” Mendoza admitted.
“I thought you said you weren’t seeing double!”
“I’m not.” After a second, he added, “Much.”
“Great.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m stuck in here with a man who needs medical attention.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mendoza said. “The air’ll give out long before the concussion kills me.”
Wonderful.
“So about Shelby...”
“Right.” He made a visible effort to focus.
“If she isn’t Farley’s mistress, what is she? Clearly not an administrative assistant!”
“I don’t think Mr. Hollingsworth is looking for an administrative assistant,” Mendoza said. “If he was, he’d have kept Rachel.”
True.
“So why not keep Rachel? She knows everything about the business. Why go to the trouble of firing her and finding someone else to answer the phones and look pretty?” Not that Rachel looked anywhere near as pretty as Shelby. Although that had never bothered David. I found it hard to believe that bothered Farley, who had always seemed like someone who valued brains over beauty.
“He wanted someone who didn’t understand what was going on,” Mendoza said. “Rachel knows too much about the business. Mr. Hollingsworth’s been safely skimming for a while, and he felt safe for as long as Rachel only worked for your husband. But if she started handling the records for the whole business, she’d catch on to what he was doing.”
That made sense. “Did he admit t
o skimming?”
Mendoza shook his head. “I’ve suspected it for a while. There were several people who benefitted financially from your husband’s death.”
“Me,” I said.
He nodded. “His children got some money. His brother got some money. And Mr. Hollingsworth got the business. But you had the most pressing need for him to die. If he survived another day, the judge would make a decision about the estate, and you might lose everything.”
Granted. “So how did that make you suspect Farley of embezzling?”
“I didn’t think you’d done it,” Mendoza said simply. “I’ve been wrong before. But you didn’t strike me as a cunning murderess.”
“Thank you.” I think. “And Farley did?”
Mendoza shook his head. “Not particularly. He seemed sincerely sorry, and worried about what would happen to the business without his partner.”
“That was probably genuine,” I said. “I have no idea how Farley planned to keep the business alive on his own.” Although, with what I now knew, maybe he hadn’t.
“He was there at the restaurant that night,” Mendoza said. “Johnny-on-the-spot. He did leave the table for a few minutes. Nobody can agree on exactly how long, but he would have had the opportunity to cut your husband’s brake lines.”
I nodded. “Why, though? Was he afraid that David had figured out that he was skimming? Because the David I knew wouldn’t have had a clue. Math was not his strong suit. And if you tell me Jacquie is some kind of accounting whiz, I won’t believe you.”
“It’s never a good idea to judge someone by the way they look,” Mendoza told me gently. “But no, it had nothing to do with Jacquie. And if your husband had any idea, he didn’t say anything to Mr. Hollingsworth about it. Not according to what Mr. Hollingsworth told me.”
“So why—?”
“The estate,” Mendoza said. “If your husband died, the business would go to Mr. Hollingsworth. But if your husband got divorced, his share of the business would become part of his assets, and the business would be audited for value. And while Mr. Hollingsworth had succeeded in hiding the embezzlement from your husband, he hadn’t a hope of hiding it from an independent auditor.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said.
“Thank you.” Mendoza made a face. “It’s a damn shame I won’t live long enough to prosecute him for it.”
“Don’t give up. I still think they’ll get us out of here and take us somewhere else before they kill us. Martha’s grandfather built this house. She won’t want to commit murder here.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mendoza said, and leaned his head against the wall. All the talking looked like it had tired him. If he had a concussion, I didn’t think he was supposed to go to sleep, though. And anyway, I had more questions.
“So I guess it was Farley who planted the overalls and knife in my garage during the funeral reception. And who tossed David’s office.”
Mendoza nodded. “He used the extension in your husband’s office to phone in an anonymous tip that the knife was there.”
“And what was he looking for?”
“Copies of original files,” Mendoza said. “He kept telling you that they were identical to the files at the Music Row office, but they weren’t. Among them were copies of files he had doctored. So if someone compared the copies to the originals, they’d be different.”
Ah. Yes, that made a lot of sense. “So that’s why he told me to get rid of them!”
Mendoza nodded. “And then, when he didn’t find all the files he was looking for, he decided to make a trip to the penthouse, as well.”
“That’s my fault.” I grimaced. “When I saw him yesterday afternoon, I mentioned that David had files downtown.”
“He would have gone to the penthouse anyway,” Mendoza said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Maybe not. And since I didn’t want it to be, I decided to take his word for it. “What about the fire?”
“You said it yourself,” Mendoza said. “He told you to have a bonfire with all the old records. He assumed you had. He figured it would look like you’d gone to sleep with the fire still burning, and had been overcome by the smoke.”
“So he was trying to kill me.”
“He wasn’t trying not to,” Mendoza said.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. You’d be able to answer that better than me. Did you say or do anything that might have made him think you knew more than you did?”
Had I?
My brain was still fuzzy, and it took effort trying to put thoughts together. I spoke slowly. “I went to the office yesterday afternoon, looking for David’s will.”
Mendoza nodded.
“That’s when I met Shelby. And a few minutes after she walked in, Farley showed up. I thought they were going to... you know.”
Mendoza nodded.
“He asked what I was doing there, and I told him. And when I was going to leave...”
“Yes?” Mendoza said, his voice alert.
“It was weird. I almost got the feeling he was blocking the doorway. Like he wasn’t going to let me leave. I knew that was silly, but...” But in retrospect, maybe not so silly after all.
Mendoza arched his brows at me.
“He asked what I had in my hand, and I told him it was insurance.”
Mendoza smothered a laugh—part of me was glad he could still see the humor in the situation—and I said defensively, “It was insurance. Life insurance. A policy David had with me as beneficiary. I took it home so I could call the company tomorrow and tell them that David died. If nothing else, I get the million dollar payout.”
“I hope you’ll live long enough to enjoy it,” Mendoza said, which wasn’t very encouraging at all.
We stopped talking after that. As Mendoza pointed out, talking used more air than breathing, and we didn’t know how long we’d be locked inside the vault. And anyway, we both felt bad. My head was still fuzzy from whatever Martha had put in my tea, and I’m sure Mendoza had a banging headache.
“I don’t suppose you have your cell phone?” I asked after a while.
He cut his eyes to me. “There’s no reception. I checked. We’re locked inside a steel box.”
“Thank you. I’m aware of that.” I didn’t need him to point it out every time I opened my mouth. “I thought maybe we could play a game, or something.”
“I turned it off,” Mendoza said, and closed his eyes again. “I didn’t want to run out the battery.”
Fine. Although if we died in here, fat lot of good conserving that battery would do.
He would have pointed that out. I didn’t.
* * *
BY MENDOZA’S ROLEX, it was after ten when we finally heard the sound of the door opening. Mendoza opened his eyes and lifted his head. I hadn’t been sleeping, so I only had to look up.
After some whirring and clicking—the safety mechanism opening, I assume—the heavy door swung in. From outside, it looked just like a normal door. What I hadn’t realized the first time I stumbled through it, was that it was four inches thick, reinforced steel.
Mendoza’s gun came into the room, followed by Martha. At least I assume it was Mendoza’s gun, since I had a hard time wrapping my brain around Martha owning one.
“Oh, good,” she said brightly. “You’re awake.”
There was no response I could make to that, not without sounding either profane or inane, so I didn’t try.
She wiggled the gun. “Come on. Up, up!”
I got to my feet. It was harder than I had anticipated. The room did a slow spin, and I put a hand to my forehead. Meanwhile, Mendoza seemed like he had some trouble, as well. He had to use the wall for support as he got slowly to his feet.
Martha tsked her tongue. “Theatrics, Detective?”
“You gave him a concussion,” I said. “He’s seeing double.”
“Oh, dear.” She sounded about as sorry as one would expect, considering that he was a man she had hit ove
r the head with a crystal golf trophy this afternoon. “I suppose you had better help him then, Gina. I can’t drag him.”
“Where’s Farley?” I asked, as I made my way across the room over to Mendoza, who was still leaning against the wall, looking winded. I had hoped that he was merely faking, that he had a cunning plan and was only pretending to be weak, until the moment he planned to make his move on Martha. But the way he draped a heavy arm across my shoulders and hung on, it was only too obvious that if anyone was going to have to come up with a cunning plan, it was going to have to be me.
And I was all out of cunning plans at the moment.
“Getting the car ready,” Martha said.
Point to me. They were taking us somewhere else before they killed us. Maybe on the way there, I’d think of something.
We walked out of the office and into the hallway. I turned left, toward the front door, and got a poke in the ribs from the gun for my trouble. “Garage,” Martha told me.
Uh-oh. Maybe they weren’t going to take us somewhere before they killed us, after all. Maybe they planned to shoot us in the garage, and then load our bodies into the car and drive away.
I pushed open the door and helped Mendoza through and down the couple of steps to the concrete floor.
Farley’s white BMW was parked in one of the bays, Martha’s Cadillac in the other. The Caddy’s trunk was open, and—I swallowed—lined with black lawn and leaf bags, the kind I had used to bag up the shredded files the other day.
Yesterday. Was it really only yesterday?
Mendoza staggered along beside me, one arm draped across my shoulders. He was dragging his feet, but I didn’t know whether it was deliberate, to gain time, or because he had to.
“There,” Martha said, gesturing with the gun.
“The trunk?”
“Yes, dear,” Martha said. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t make much sense to have you sit in the backseat.”
No, probably not. Now the only question was whether she’d shoot us once we were inside the trunk, or whether they’d wait until they got to where they were going. If they did it now, they’d have to haul our dead weight back out of the trunk. And although they’d covered the inside of the trunk with plastic, there was a possibility that a drop of blood might find its way through to the trunk itself, where it would be enough to incriminate them.
Ditching David Page 21