She went back inside, took a hot shower, and went to bed. She read for a little while and fell asleep thinking about why someone might have wanted to kill Nigel Fairbroad. She had a little list going:
Life insurance money.
To run away with Moonbow and live life with wide open chakras.
Because they needed gator feed.
25
Aidan was already at his desk by the time Sofia arrived at the office at a little before eight o’clock. She picked up the new bag of adult diapers from her chair and walked over to Aidan.
“Don’t you think this joke is getting a little old?” she said, smacking the diapers down on his desk.
Aidan looked up from his screen. “Not really, no.”
She perched on the edge of his desk. “So how was your date? Or were there dates?”
He held up three fingers.
“Three dates,” she said. To think that she’d spent the night home alone after having dinner with a bird.
“First one was a SIF,” Aidan said. “So that one was short.”
“What’s a SIF?” Sofia asked.
“Secret Internet Fatty. I should have guessed when she said she was curvy and didn’t have any full body pics,” Aidan said.
“You’re a disgusting sexist pig. You know that, right?” said Sofia.
Aidan stood up and headed over to the coffee maker. “You want one?”
“No, thanks.”
“So you’d date a fat guy who lied about being overweight on his profile?” Aidan said, pouring himself a mug of coffee.
“Maybe or maybe not, but I wouldn’t call him names.”
“I didn’t call her names,” said Aidan.
“You just called her a secret Internet fatty!”
“No, I didn’t. I said that to you, not her. And you’re totally lying. If your date ended up being a SIF, you’d come home after and call all your girlfriends and bitch about how what an awful night you had and how come guys are such lying douchebags, so don’t make out like you’re somehow superior.”
“I absolutely would not,” Sofia protested, although he might have been right. “What about the other two lucky ladies?”
Aidan took a sip of coffee and walked back to his desk. “Number two was a bust.”
“How come?” Sofia braced herself for his response.
“Didn’t shave her legs,” he said with a shrug.
Okay, that was kind of gross. Sofia kept going. “That was it?”
“You heard what I just said, right? I mean if she doesn’t shave her legs, she probably doesn’t shave her, you know what, either,” said Aidan.
“So?” Sofia said.
“What do you mean ‘so?’ ” Aidan shot back.
“Don’t you think it’s weird how guys expect women not to have hair down there now? It kind of creeps me out, the idea that grown women should look like they haven’t hit puberty yet.”
“Yeah, well you’re not me,” said Aidan. “Or any one of ninety per cent of male dating partners in LA.”
“Thank God,” said Sofia. “So what about lucky contestant number three? Too skinny? Too tall?”
Aidan put his coffee down and smiled. “Nope.”
“So what was wrong with her?” Sofia asked.
“Nothing.”
Sofia couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Since Aidan had started online dating and applied his ridiculous set of criteria, he must have been on hundreds of dates and hadn’t found anyone he couldn’t find fault with. “Wait. What? Nothing?”
Aidan shrugged. “Nope. She was damn near perfect.”
“But not completely perfect?”
“I don’t know,” Aidan said. “It was a first date. I’m seeing her again on Saturday.”
Sofia checked her watch, grabbed a piece of paper, and jotted down the time. Aidan looked at her, puzzled.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Logging the time that this momentous news broke to the world: the moment when Aidan Maloney didn’t find fault and went for a second date,” said Sofia.
“You jealous?”
“No, but I am going to stop shaving my legs just to be on the safe side,” said Sofia.
Aidan spun around on his office chair. “Believe me, you have nothing to fear. You fail the Aidan Maloney gold standard in pretty much every main category.”
Sofia held up a hand. “Please, don’t tell me. I’d like to hold out some tiny glimmer of hope for us.”
She leaned over his shoulder. “So have you actually been doing any work this morning or are you simply basking in the glow of finally getting a second date for once in your miserable existence?”
Aidan hit a button, and the left hand screen on his desk filled with an image of a man Sofia recognized as Moonbow, minus his purple robes and moustache and a few years younger. He was wearing prison blues, standing behind a ruler showing his height and holding up a white piece of card with what Sofia guessed was a prison inmate number written on it. He looked cuter without the moustache. She could see what Melissa saw in him.
“Meet Bobby Rogers,” said Aidan. “Born in Philly on August 8th, 1965. High school dropout but not dumb. Made a ton of money in the eighties selling timeshare property in Florida. Only problem was that he didn’t actually own the holiday condos he was selling.”
“If it was timeshare, the people who bought them didn’t either.” Sofia had been approached by timeshare salesmen before.
Aidan laughed. “Anyway, he got caught by the Feds and sentenced to seven years. Got out after five. Moved onto selling tech stocks out of a New York boiler room operation. Would have taken another fall but was smart enough to rat out some of the other players. Still copped two years, which turned out to be a great deal because the guys he ratted out got twelve.”
“So how did he get from that to Moonbow?” Sofia asked.
Aidan stretched his arms out wide. “California, dude. Land of last chances and total reinvention.”
“So, he could have met Melissa Fairbroad and seen the chance for a big score after they got the husband out of the way?” Sofia said. “From what I’ve seen, it wouldn’t have been that hard to persuade Melissa that offing Nigel was a good plan. She didn’t seem to like him much.”
“It’s entirely possible.” He held up his index finger. “But hold that thought because…”
He reached down and clicked his mouse. Moonbow, aka Bobby Rogers’s face disappeared and was replaced by a picture of Tucker “TT” Trimble. He was also holding up a prison number but, unlike Bobby, Tucker looked pretty much exactly the same. The same facial hair, the same straggly hair, and the same mad-dog scowl.
Sofia studied Tucker’s mug shot. She guessed that the TV show had one thing right. If it did come to a major breakdown in society or a post-apocalyptic scenario, Tucker would probably be one of the last survivors, along with rats and cockroaches.
“So what was Tucker in for?” she asked Aidan, although the question she really wanted an answer to was why a production company would hire someone with a criminal record for a show where he was put in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Not just any old show either: one with knives, guns, and all kinds of other instruments of wilderness survival training.
“Might take less time if I told you what he wasn’t in for,” Aidan said. “His jacket’s pretty impressive.”
He opened a desk drawer, pulled out a manila folder, and passed it to Sofia. She opened it and started reading. Aidan hadn’t been lying. It was a pretty extensive record. Most of Tucker’s convictions were for some kind of assault. He wasn’t a thief or a fraudster like Bobby Rogers. From the newspaper reports Aidan had also assembled, it seemed Tucker had an extremely short temper and love of substances, legal and illegal. Going by one report from his hometown back in Kentucky, he also appeared to have a problem with any kind of authority in general and cops in particular.
Flicking to the final pages of the file, she read a long profile of Tucker written for the first season o
f the TV show. His colorful past was mentioned, at length, but it had been spun so that he would come off to the casual reader as a likeable tobacco-chewing, moonshine-distilling redneck rogue whose numerous run ins with the law were more Dukes of Hazzard than America’s Most Wanted. Much was made of Tucker’s having found Jesus during his last spell in prison and wanting to make recompense to society at large by passing on his backwoods survival skills to troubled teens. Sofia’s favorite quote from Tucker was “I can relate to screwed-up kids because I was one.” But Tucker’s screwed-up adolescence had extended into his late thirties.
Still, as Jeffrey had been trying to impress upon her last night, the great American public did love a tale of redemption. Even more so when it came gift wrapped in homespun, folksy sentiment. Sofia wasn’t buying it, and neither was Aidan, but it had clearly worked for Tucker Trimble’s fans.
“Fun guy, right?” Aidan said as Sofia handed the file back.
“Oh yeah, a regular comedian in camo.”
“You ever watch the show?” Aidan asked.
“A little.” She’d watched it before, but she wasn’t going to watch it again, not after meeting Tucker in person.
“He’s actually pretty good with the kids,” Aidan said. “Kind of relatable in a weird way. There was this one episode in the first season where this girl with an eating disorder had a complete meltdown. Tucker stayed out with her the whole night in the pouring rain. It was pretty much the first time in the kid’s life that someone hadn’t given up on her.”
Sofia had always wondered what Aidan did in the evenings when he wasn’t finding fault with the single female population of greater Los Angeles. She guessed that his spare hours were filled with bad reality TV shows. Like hers.
“You’re saying he’s innocent?” she asked.
Aidan shrugged. “No, I think he could be our man. I’m just saying he’s not all bad.”
The main office door opened, and Brendan walked in. Sofia was going to leave Aidan to break the good news. They had not one but two strong potential suspects in Moonbow and Tucker.
Moonbow’s connection to Melissa made him less than ideal, but if he was linked to Nigel’s murder, Sofia was sure that Stark would advise Melissa to talk to the cops first and sell him down the river. Sofia doubted Melissa would hesitate for a second if it came down to a choice between her lover and life behind bars. No one was that good at opening a woman’s chakras.
Brendan walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. He looked distracted. Sofia could usually gauge his mood pretty easily. He was good at putting on his game face in front of clients and strangers, but working with someone every day, you got to read in between the lines. If Brendan was in a good mood, he was full of good mornings. If he was having a bad morning, he tended to go quiet and was best avoided, at least until he’d had his first cup of coffee.
“I have to make a phone call,” Brendan said before disappearing into his office and closing the door.
Sofia looked at Aidan. He gave her an ‘I don’t know what’s up with him either’ shrug.
A few minutes later, Brendan’s office door opened again, and he stuck his head out. Sofia was pretty sure she smelled cigarette smoke. Brendan had been an on-off smoker since she’d known him. He was also pretty secretive about it because Aidan really didn’t like his old man smoking. Brendan sneaking a cigarette in his office qualified as a bad sign.
“Stark wants to see us at his office in an hour,” Brendan said.
Sofia exchanged another look with Aidan. He looked as worried as she felt. Another bad sign.
“Problem?” Sofia asked.
“You could say that,” said Brendan. “Melissa Fairbroad was just arrested. I’ve spoken to a couple of people downtown, and the word is they’re going to charge her with first-degree murder.”
26
Melissa’s attorney, John Stark, Esq., had an entire floor of a gleaming office building in Century City. Sofia understood why Maloney Investigations was eager to keep him happy. He must have had at least a dozen other attorneys working for him, not to mention dozens more paralegals, admin, and support staff.
Walking out of the elevator, Aidan, Brendan, and Sofia were greeted by a sparkling reception area manned by two female receptionists. Sofia had barely settled into one of the plush couches before Stark himself appeared and personally escorted them into his large corner office.
“I thought having Aidan and Sofia here would save us time later, John,” said Brendan. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Stark took a seat behind his desk. “Not at all. We need every hand on deck right now.” He took a dramatic pause. “I’ll be honest with you, Brendan. It’s not looking good. Last night the sheriff’s department had a tip to go search a boat Nigel Fairbroad had at Marina Del Rey.”
“We know who called it in?” Brendan asked.
Stark shook his head. “Came via an anonymous tip line. I have my suspicions about who it may have been but I’ll get to that a little later.” He glanced over at Aidan. “I’m guessing from what Brendan told me on the phone this morning that you probably have the same name in mind as I do.”
“The wife?” said Aidan.
Stark shrugged. “She has plenty of motive, but she’s not my first choice, obviously. Listen, before we dive in, do you guys want anything? Water? Coffee?”
They all declined. Sofia guessed that Aidan and Brendan were as keen as she was to know what the anonymous tipster offered up to the sheriff’s department.
“Okay,” Stark said. “So the sheriff’s department go to check out the boat.”
“Was this the one Nigel was dumped from?” Sofia asked. This was the first she’d heard of Nigel owning a boat, never mind one in Marina Del Rey.
Stark shrugged. “Good question. It’s looking that way, but last night was the first time anyone had bothered to take a look.”
Sofia felt a little better when both Brendan and Aidan looked as she confused as she was. How could the cops not have checked out Nigel’s boat when he’d been found washed up on Broad Beach having presumably been dumped out at sea? If his body had been thrown into the ocean from a dock or pier, the tides would have likely brought him ashore pretty quickly if his body hadn’t been weighed down.
But not if he’d been dumped on the beach in Malibu and hadn’t washed up. That seemed unlikely. Almost every stretch of the Malibu coastline was overlooked by multiple homes or used by surfers or beach bums. You couldn’t so much as toss an empty beer can on a Malibu beach without incurring the wrath of at least one wealthy resident. Dumping a body would have been noticed.
“Seems kind of shoddy,” said Brendan.
“I agree with you, but now I’m thinking it might have been better if it had stayed like that,” said Stark.
“That bad?” Aidan prompted.
“Oh yeah,” Stark said. “So the cops get down there, climb aboard, and go below deck. They find empty shell casings, a gun that’s the same caliber as the casings, and blood stains, which is exactly what the civic-minded member of the public who called it in told them they’d find.”
“How does that link it to Melissa?” Sofia asked.
“Her prints are all over the gun,” Stark said.
No one said anything for a few moments as it sunk in. That put Melissa at the scene of the crime. It would be tough to claim she had nothing to do with it now. And it just got harder for Sofia to convince herself that they were doing something good by helping her out.
“The blood?” said Brendan finally.
“They’re waiting on the forensics, but odds on the blood will match to Nigel,” said Stark.
“With any luck it won’t match Mrs. Fairbroad, too,” Aidan said.
The wife below deck with a handgun. It was just like the game Clue, and all the other suspects had been crossed out. The situation couldn’t have been worse. Unless someone found a video tape of Melissa pulling the trigger and shooting Nigel. Sofia didn’t rule out that possibility.
/> “They have anything apart from blood?” Brendan said. “He had three fingers blown off. There would be bone fragments, a chunk of gold from his wedding ring, something.”
“If they did, they haven’t mentioned it so far,” said Stark. “It’ll come out in disclosure if they have.”
Brendan shook his head. “There’s neat and then there’s too neat.”
“No such thing as way too neat for a good prosecutor in front of a jury,” Stark said. “They’ll get up in court and claim Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is almost always the correct one. Melissa shot him on the boat, took it out, dumped the body over the side, and hoped that would be that.”
“And left the gun lying there with her prints all over it?” Sofia asked.
Stark looked over at Brendan. “Brendan? You handled your fair share of homicides when you were on the force. How would you explain that one?”
Brendan got up and walked to the window. “Criminals are dumb. Or they panic. She was a first timer. Maybe she did as much as she could to cover her tracks, and then the horror of it sunk in. Or maybe she planned on going back and getting the gun. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact her prints are on that gun and that gun matches to the slugs the coroner pulled out of Nigel’s body.”
“Why not dump the gun with the body?” said Sofia. “A gun won’t wash up. It’ll sink to the bottom.”
“Brendan just gave you the answer,” Stark said. “She panicked. Or she forgot. Or maybe on some subconscious level, she wanted to be caught. Like he said, the prosecution doesn’t have to explain away a screw-up by the defendant any more than it has to justify why someone makes a full confession. The evidence is the evidence. It is what it is.”
“But isn’t it obvious that whoever called in the tip has to be involved somehow? Otherwise how would they know to tell the cops to look where they did?” Sofia said.
A is for Actress (Malibu Mystery Book 1) Page 11