Fortunately, a top of the hour newscast was brief. A CliffsNotes version of the day’s news. At best, it was five minutes, four if there was a commercial break, and there were seldom more than five or six stories, including sound bites. I breezed into the news booth with time to spare. The computer screen on the news desk was already populated with stories Tyler had chosen in my absence. I put on my headphones and glanced through the glass into the studio. I had to forcibly lock my jaw to keep it from falling open.
Sitting next to Big John, KNST’s afternoon drive personality, was Ben Silva, the impenetrable Saint Silva. With the station directive not to discuss Silva’s accident, I couldn’t have been more surprised if it were Mother Teresa herself.
They were in the final strokes of an interview. From what I could gather, Silva had asked for the opportunity to talk about the accident, no doubt trying to put an end to any speculation he might’ve been involved. His comments were focused on his wife’s accountability and well-being.
John asked about the arrest.
“Something like this is always a tragedy,” Silva said. “For all parties. It’s unfortunate my wife chose to drive me to work that night. As I told the police, neither of us saw the young woman. All I can remember is that she darted out in front of us. We stopped and checked, but we couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black. At the time, I thought my wife had just nicked the back of her bike, and that she had just picked it up and left.
“And then you went home.”
“Yes. It was getting late, and my wife insisted we go back to the house and I take her car to work. She returned with my car, to the scene of the accident. It was then she saw the young woman’s bike. It was thrown some twenty feet into the bushes, at which point she called me, and I told her to call the police.”
I didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. It didn’t make sense someone like Silva would let his wife drive him to work, much less in his prized t-top corvette. Silva was six-two, his wife barely five feet. I doubted she could even see over the steering wheel. I couldn’t prove it, but maybe Chase could. I made a mental note to mention it to him. After all, I had promised to call him back, and I was searching for a way to slow him down while I concentrated on Sally.
After I had finished my report, I went immediately to DJ’s office. Her assistant, who normally guarded the door and scheduled her appointments, was gone and the door to her office was open. With no one to keep me out, I tapped lightly on the door and announced my presence.
“Ms. Presley?”
DJ smiled up at me. “Carol. Please, come in.” She waved to me with the back of her hand, her long fingers fanning her face. “We’ve just been discussing you.”
We?
I stepped into the office and noticed Tyler sitting on the sofa to the side of DJ’s desk.
Granted, I wanted to talk to Tyler, but I was desperate to speak with DJ first, and what I needed to share with DJ was definitely not the conversation I planned to have with Tyler.
Tyler looked over his shoulder as I entered the room.
“Yes, Carol, come in. I’ve been telling DJ what a successful week you’re having. What with that interview with Ms. Redding yesterday and your show Sunday night. Good work. Must be that new detective I asked you to work with. Things going well with the two of you?”
Nope. This was definitely not the conversation I wanted to have. DJ knew nothing of Chase. Even worse, if she thought I might have shared information about Mustang Sally with a PI, I’d be finished.
“Good.” I nodded my head nervously and started to back out of the room, making excuses for interrupting them and suggesting I come back later.
DJ stood up, her eyes pinned to mine. “No. Please. Stay. I do need a word with you, and Tyler was just leaving.”
Tyler got up and high-fived me on the way out. After he had left, DJ asked me to close the door.
I leaned back against it with my hands behind me. “I’ve made contact with Sally. I’m meeting her tomorrow night.”
“Are you going to need any help?” DJ reached into her desk and took out a small pad of paper.
“No. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ve arranged to pick her up for coffee. When I do, I’ll bring her to you.”
I wasn’t about to share with DJ the truth about how I’d managed to arrange a meeting with Sally. While I hadn’t shared DJ’s secret, I feared telling her anymore would reveal that I had already said too much to too many people. Instead, I let DJ assume I’d gotten lucky and Mustang Sally had called the station and suggested we meet.
“Perfect.” DJ scribbled a number down on the pad and handed it to me. “This is a burner cell. I don’t want anything traced to me in case things don’t go down the way we’ve planned.”
“What could go wrong?” I asked. “It’s just coffee, right?”
“You don’t need to worry about Sally, Carol. She’ll be just fine. I’m not going to hurt her. I only want to help save Sally from herself. Call me when you’ve picked her up, and I’ll meet you wherever you like. And remember, don’t say a thing about this. Not to anyone.”
CHAPTER 28
It helped to have a best friend who grew up in Hollywood and with whom I could brainstorm things like kidnappings. Although I didn’t realize how much until I arrived at Sheri’s house and she explained to me the flaw in my plan.
“No way you’re going to meet Mustang Sally dressed like that.”
“Why? Sally doesn’t know what Jennifer looks like. And I doubt she’d know me, even if I introduced myself as Carol Childs, KNST’s late-night host for The Soap Box. You know, reporter extraordinaire.” I opened my arms wide and smiled. I was feeling a bit full of myself, giddy at the prospect of kidnapping Sally and beating Chase to the punch.
“You don’t get it, do you?”
We were standing in Sheri’s closet, a good-sized wardrobe that ran the length of the house and was jam-packed with clothes, shoes, and hatboxes. Sheri was a clotheshorse. She had tons of designer pieces in various sizes and colors, plus a rack of costumes from her father’s movies. She spun me around to a full-length mirror.
“Look at yourself, Carol. You don’t exactly look like an abuse victim on the run.”
I stared at myself in the mirror and pulled my hair up in a bun atop my head. Maybe a different hairstyle might help. “Abuse victims don’t necessarily look abused,” I said.
“Yes, but one on the run needs to appear desperate. Disheveled.”
I supposed she was right. If Jennifer was any example, when I had last seen her, she appeared as though she had been sleeping in her clothes. And while I was no fashionista, by comparison, I did look a little too put together.
Sheri grabbed the collar of my coat, helped me take it off, and threw it on a lounge chair in the center of the closet.
“Try this.” From the rack, she grabbed an old western duster. No doubt from one of her father’s movie shoots. The long jacket looked as though it had been used in a gunfight. It included what I hoped were fake bloodstains and what was a small bullet hole in the shoulder.
I put my finger through the hole. “A little too desperate, don’t you think?”
“Not if we cover it with a scarf. Maybe something like this.” Sheri pulled a black knit shawl from one of the drawers beneath the rack and threw it over my shoulders. “Now kick off your shoes. You’re going to need tennis shoes and not good ones. Something old, like these.”
She handed me a pair of beat up old high-tops. Fortunately, Sheri and I were the same size. I may have been six inches taller, but size-wise, from head to toe, we were a match.
I slipped them on and stared at my reflection in the mirror. If disheveled or one-stop-short-of-homeless was the look we were going for, I was it.
“One more thing,” Sheri said.
“What?”
“The hair. We need to change it.”
From the top of the shelf, Sheri pulled down a hat box full of wigs and tossed a few on the floor. Blonde. Platinum. Red. Then finding what she wanted, thrust it in my direction.
“Try this.”
I pushed my hair beneath a short dishwater ’do shingled in the back and longer in the front, with stringy curls to my collar. I turned and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like I’d just come in from the rain.
From behind me, Sheri put her hands on my shoulders and pushed down.
“What?” I said.
“You need to slouch.”
“Slouch?”
“Like you’ve got the world on your shoulders, Carol. You’re scared. Frightened. You’ve been running. If you’re going to pull this off, you’ve got to embrace the role.”
“What, are you directing now?” I looked at Sheri. “I’m beginning to think you missed your calling.”
“Trust me. You don’t grow up the daughter of a director without learning a thing or two about dressing for the part.”
“Obviously not,” I said. “Anything else?”
“A black eye.”
“No way!” I backed up, my hands in front of my face.
“Relax. I’m not going to hit you. But you’re definitely going to need it. And it’s easy enough to do with makeup. You have an ace bandage at home?”
I sighed and nodded yes.
“Wrap your wrist with it. It’ll look like it’s sprained and they’ll think he did it. We can do your makeup before you go tomorrow. “
“We?”
“I’m going with you.”
There was no point in arguing. If Sally didn’t want to go with me or resisted for any reason, I was going to need Sheri’s help. On top of which, using my car was out of the question. My tomato-red jeep, with its KNST stickers on the bumper, was hardly conducive to an undercover operation. Instead, Sheri volunteered her son’s car, a second-hand Range Rover that had been one of her father’s cars, used to scout location shoots in the desert. Together we plotted how Sheri would go with me as far as the student café directly across from the old hospital. As a graduate of the University, I knew the campus well. From inside the coffee shop, she’d have a good view of the medical center’s West Tower entrance and could wait there until I’d finished my meeting with Sally and her tribunal. The idea was that once I had wrapped things up, so to speak, I’d ask Sally to walk with me back to the car. Tell her I was worried I might have been followed and had a few questions. When Sheri saw us leave the building, she would trail us back to the parking lot. I had no idea if I’d need help getting Sally into the car, but if I did, if something went wrong, Sheri would be there to help. At least that was the plan.
CHAPTER 29
Wednesday I felt like I had rocks in my stomach. I must have pulled Jennifer’s cell from my bag at least a dozen times, checking to see if Mustang Sally had called or texted me to cancel our meeting. And every time my own cell rang I would jump, fearful it would be Chase asking if I’d heard anything from Sally, or worse, calling to tell me he had found her. I didn’t want to lie to him, but what else could I do?
Finally, after procrastinating as long as possible, I picked up my office phone and called Chase. He answered, his voice upbeat like he was both surprised and happy to hear from me.
“Hey there, you actually can call back. I thought you’d lost my number.”
I resisted the urge to smile. “I told you I’d call.”
“You’ll forgive me if I wasn’t holding my breath.”
I wasn’t up for playing games. I didn’t want to get into a discussion about our mutual hunt for Mustang Sally. Before he had a chance to ask for an update, I asked him for a favor.
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time, but there’s something I could use your help on.”
I expected Chase to come back with some obnoxious remark about how he knew I’d finally come around. Instead, he simply replied, “Shoot. What ya got?”
I explained Silva’s accident and how I couldn’t believe he was innocent. That I felt certain his wife hadn’t been driving the car, but that Silva had.
“Turns out, the police have charged her with manslaughter, and management has got a blackout on any employee of the station talking about it. But I was hoping—”
“That if someone was to do a little snooping around and bring something to the attention of the authorities, maybe those charges would be dropped?”
“And filed against Silva.”
“Don’t see why not. What’s in it for you?”
“Nothing.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Other than keeping Chase occupied while I meet with Sally, it wasn’t a total lie. Only a convenient little white lie I hoped might help Silva’s wife and buy me some time to deal with Sally.
Chase chuckled. “That’s what I like about you, Carol. You’re all about trying to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I tried to sound upbeat as I squeezed the handle of the phone in my hand. “Always trying to do the right thing.”
Sheri and I drove down to UCLA in her son’s Range Rover, exactly as planned, and separated as soon as she parked the car. Sheri went to the student café directly across from the old medical center, while I headed off to the West Tower to meet with Sally.
The Medical Center, a sixty-two-year-old superstructure, easily covered several city blocks. While still in use for classrooms, it had been declared unfit as a hospital after being damaged in the 1994 earthquake. The small entrance to the West Tower was little more than a set of double glass doors that appeared to have been added as an afterthought to allow for an additional emergency exit. Directly across from the doors was a bank of wide, steel gray utilitarian-looking elevators, the type designed for patient gurneys. The lobby was empty.
I wrapped my arms around myself and glanced at my watch: 7:55. It was still early. Perhaps Sally had intended to meet me on the fifth floor. Room 518.
I punched the elevator call button and waited impatiently. When the doors opened, a handful of students, chatting with backpacks and notebooks in hand, got off. I squeezed in and hit the button for the fifth floor. Then from behind me, I heard her voice.
“Jennifer?”
“Sally?” My voice cracked, the pitch higher and softer than normal.
There with her back against the elevator wall, shadowed in the dim light, was Sally. She wasn’t at all what I expected. She was taller than me, probably close to six feet, and big, with broad shoulders and coarse, kinky gray hair she had piled in a bun on top her head. She looked to be somewhere in her mid-sixties and was wearing a London Fog raincoat and a plaid Burberry scarf wrapped high around her neck. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was an instructor, or maybe a late-night student finishing up one of the master classes offered in the building.
“Our group’s upstairs. I was just coming to meet you. Are you alone?”
I nodded yes, kept my eyes on the floor, and crossed my hands in front of me, hoping I appeared as nervous and frightened as Sheri had coached me. Which didn’t take a lot of acting on my part.
“We can’t be too careful.” I could feel Sally’s eyes on me. Searching my person for some clue of who I was and what she imagined I must have been through. Then reaching for my hand, she pulled me close to her, turned my face to hers, and stared at my blackened eye. “He do this to you?”
I pulled away, covering my face with my bandaged hand. Sheri’s makeup was good. How good, I didn’t know. I worried being this close, Sally might see the fear in my eyes wasn’t from being abused, but of her discovering my deception.
“I thought I was safe. I moved here thinking he wouldn’t find me. But he did. And then he wouldn’t leave me alone. He promised it’d be different this time. That he loved me, and that he had changed. That I was the only one who understood him, and we belonged together. And then it started all ove
r again. The yelling. The threats.”
I tried to recall every horrible scenario I had ever reported on or read online with what Jennifer had told me about her breakup. Jennifer’s story paled in comparison, but Mustang Sally didn’t know that.
Sally grabbed my hands and squeezed them between her own.
“You don’t have to worry, Jennifer. Not anymore. We can stop him. But you have to trust me.”
I squeaked out an “I know.” And stared back down at the floor. Sheri, you should give me an Academy Award for this.
“This will go quickly.” Sally patted my hand. “My group didn’t want to meet tonight. They’re nervous, and I can’t blame them. Some things have happened, and it’s all my fault. But I convinced them how important tonight was. We’re all committed to the cause, and they’re here for you.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“A lot happened. Something terrible happened to someone I was trying to help, then I lost someone very close to me, and I started drinking. Something I never should have done. But you needn’t worry. I’m not drinking now, and my tribunal’s here for you. All you have to do is tell them your story.”
I kept my eyes and head low and nodded nervously.
As the elevators doors opened, Sally gave my hand a final squeeze and waited for me to step out into the hallway. It looked deserted, lit with old neon grey-white lights, and cold. On the wall opposite us was a bulletin board cluttered with announcements and want ads. Beneath it, a trash can overflowed with coffee cups and paper products.
“Is anyone else here?”
“You mean students? No. Not now. There are a few evening classes in the building, but nothing on this floor. Just us.”
With no one in sight, Mustang Sally instructed me to follow her. I was glad I’d met her in the elevator. It would’ve been easy to get lost. The white-tiled hallways were like a maze, spreading endlessly past empty nursing stations, closed wooden doors to what must have been patient rooms, and every two hundred feet or so, old-fashioned emergency showers with pull handles like those from some ancient teaching hospital. It seemed to go on forever, through sets of double doors into more of the same.
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