The bar crowd had mostly left or moved into the dining room except for a fat white girl in red high-heeled shoes with ankle straps and a black hootchie-mama dress that squeezed her ass out like an aneurysm. One of her hands held a frothy pink drink in a tulip glass, and the other was draped over a doughy guy in his late forties who looked as if he just wanted another tequila shooter.
Venus arrived, and we took a booth near the bar. Hanging above our table was a dust-covered piñata, swaying to the music of a roving mariachi trio crooning to diners stupefied by the age-old question: to tip or not to tip. Venus was agitated and hungry, a bad combo, so I gave her the other Nut Goodies bar I’d commandeered from Eric’s desk. After that, she had a margarita and emergency chips and salsa and finally started to mellow. Before long, the limes from her drinks were lined up in formation across the table like little green soldiers guarding some kind of border.
All the booths were full now, and the bar was getting a second hit, which meant a lot of handshaking and smiling for Don Diego’s mother. Venus asked if I’d heard anything from my aunt Sylvia since my visit to her house. I told her I hadn’t, and that it made me nervous.
She filled me in on the office buzz. Apparently, Hastings was strutting down the halls as if his name were already on the letterhead. That was bad enough, but when she told me he’d joined the Marina Yacht Club so he could rub elbows with the right people, my jaw tensed. Gordon encouraged all his consultants to join social clubs so they could network with clients in an informal environment, but the yacht club was near and dear to his heart because he kept his boat there. I had the same opportunity to join that Hastings had, but I chose not to because I’m not a clubby kind of person. Right now that decision looked like a missed opportunity.
“Yacht club?” I said. “That’s rich. I hear Hastings can’t even take a shower without Dramamine.”
Her signature laugh was full-bodied. It lifted my spirits, but only until she told me about the rumors floating around the office about my suspension. They were entertaining but not altogether flattering. Hearing them made me tense. I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to me, to my career, to my house. Frankly, the idea of having someone waiting for me at home to help sort through all my problems was sounding very appealing right now.
“Venus, you think I should get back with Eric?”
Her head was tilted down, so when her eyes looked up at me, they seemed bigger than usual, like coffee stains on boiled eggs.
“I’m trying to eat here,” she said, using her chip to shovel salsa into her mouth. “Just cuz you’re not gettin any doesn’t mean you have to panic.”
I shrugged. “Just an idea.”
The space between her brows narrowed into a frown. “You need to find you a real man.”
“Like who? One of Waddell’s cop friends? No, thanks.”
“What about that Kleinman guy?” she said. “He sounds cute.”
“He’s mad at me. Claims I’m holding out on him.”
“Your timing’s off, honey. That’s supposed to come later.”
I rolled my eyes and gave her my yeah-yeah-yeah look. Luckily, her lecture was cut short by the arrival of the food, delivered on plates as big as hubcaps. Venus was dieting, so she’d ordered the sour cream on the side, but the waiter had forgotten. She shrugged it off as an experiment gone bad.
“I hear Gordon’s stressing out trying to get a hold of you,” she said. “Everybody’s supposed to pass the word along. Of course, he got nothing from me.”
“How’s Eugene?”
She shook her head in disapproval. “He thinks Hastings is the one setting you up, so he’s snooping around like double-oh-seven. You better talk to him before somebody stomps his little head.”
I’d rejected the Hastings-as-suspect theory early on, but decided to take a moment to reconsider the possibility: Hastings changes the NeuroMed report and blames it on me to eliminate his strongest competitor for partner. No, it has to be bigger than that. Maybe this: Hastings has a close relationship with Wade Covington. He also has access to my files at work. Covington wants to buy the firm rather than continue to pay outside consultants but doesn’t want to pay full price. Covington promises Hastings a partnership for helping him pull it off. Hastings agrees, alters Polk’s report, tarnishes the firm’s image just a tad but destroys mine; Gordon loses business because of fraud accusations and has to sell to Covington at a discount. Covington’s happy. Polk’s happy. Hastings is happy. Right? Wrong. Both scenarios seemed like the products of an overwrought imagination.
“I’ll take care of Eugene,” I said, “and don’t worry about Gordon. I’ll talk to him, too. I just want to track down the NeuroMed documents first.”
I fished out the lemon wedge from my iced tea and used my straw to march a couple of her lime corporals to my side of the table.
“What about Covington?” I asked. “Find out anything?”
“Waddell doesn’t know squat about Covington or Teresa García—at least that’s what he told me. I didn’t press him, because—shit, Tucker—he could lose his job sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Damn. That’s all?”
“No, that’s not all. I made a call to a friend over at Covington’s Wilmington operation, too.”
Venus told me she’d met the senior manager during a consulting assignment and had kept in contact with her over the years. The woman denied knowing anything about Teresa García, but claimed that people who thought Covington was Mohammed, Jesus Christ, and Buddha all rolled into one had it wrong. Big deal. That wasn’t news. I didn’t know what I’d expected Venus to find out. Just more. It was disappointing.
“I have to know what happened to Teresa García,” I said, “like if she really fell in the bathtub, and if so, why she ended up in Mexico afterwards. I also want to know if the police were involved.”
“Whoa,” she said. “I’m not the child’s biographer. How should I know if she left town flying commercial or medevac? Besides, information like that just gets you in more trouble.”
The mariachi boys in their black velvet sombreros had worked their way to our table, but they bobbed past quickly after admitting they didn’t know the words to “Millie Make Some Chili” and hearing Venus say “no substitutions.” I finished herding the limes to my side of the table. Now they were lined up in a perfect V flying formation, with my lemon wedge as point man.
“What about Sunland?” I said.
“Nothing you don’t already know,” she said.
Except for gossip and speculation, Venus had come up with a big, fat zero. That was a bad sign for my little investigation. I considered the possibility that Cole was getting a kickback from the phony insurance premiums. Maybe he and Polk split fifty-fifty. Francine and Irene probably managed the fine print, and everybody won except the insurance companies and consumers everywhere. I just didn’t know how to prove it.
“Thanks anyway,” I said. “I’ll try another angle.”
Venus stared disapprovingly at my citrus air force and said, “Why can’t you just leave things be?”
Our friendship had a lot to do with bridges. Venus avoided crossing hers, and I usually left mine in flames. I thought for a moment before answering her.
“Because that would be too easy.”
I left Venus to her double espresso and her flourless chocolate cake, because Muldoon was sitting at home in the dark with his legs crossed and I was beat.
As I sped north on the coast highway, I tried to think of who else might have information on Teresa García. The girl obviously had been treated at NeuroMed. Perhaps Francine knew something about the circumstances surrounding her death. I decided to ask her, even if it meant confronting Kenny again. I couldn’t make up my mind whether that decision sounded more like a big mistake or some kind of death wish.
22
i’d just turned down the access road to my house when I saw a black Ford Explorer parked in my driveway. I felt a tingling sensation and a fl
ash of fear because no one was at the side door, the normal place a visitor would be. I put the Boxster in reverse and cautiously backed up the street and parked well out of sight of the house.
I used the public beach access just south of my place, careful when opening the chain-link gate, so it wouldn’t squeak. I walked down the concrete steps to a narrow asphalt path. A row of small trees with overgrown branches enclosed me in a dark and claustrophobic tunnel. After clearing the trees, I crouched low and negotiated my way carefully through the sand, taking cover behind a cluster of Adirondack chairs about fifty feet from the house.
A man stood on my deck in front of the French doors, silhouetted by light from a gap in the curtains. His back was to me, so I saw only that he was tall and wearing dark clothing: jeans and what looked like a brown jacket.
The pulse drumming in my ears and the crash and sizzle of waves breaking on the sand kept me from hearing anything, but I saw Muldoon’s head poking out through the curtains. He looked as if he was barking his head off. No, Muldoon, I thought. No. No. Get away.
The man squatted and put his hand on the glass in front of the dog. My adrenaline surged, and I thought, if he hurts Muldoon, he’ll pay. But for some reason, the pup quieted down. After a moment, the man stood, and as he turned toward me, I saw his face.
My stomach dropped a couple of floors. It was Deegan, the security guy from Covington’s luncheon. My legs were cramped and achy from the cold, but I didn’t dare move. Deegan walked down the steps of the deck and stepped onto the sand. He cautiously looked around. Then he headed up the hill behind the house as if he was going to leave. I felt giddy with relief. And that’s when my cell phone rang.
For a split second I thought my heart would stop. Deegan must have heard the sound, too, because he whirled around and pressed his body into the shadows of the house. I pawed frantically through my purse to turn off the ringer. Run? Hide? Considering our last encounter, I decided to stay put. Deegan was too fast for me.
For what seemed like an eternity, he remained tucked alongside the house. Finally, he moved slowly out of the darkness, scanned the beach, and walked briskly toward his car. A short time later, I heard an engine start and saw lights flicker up the hill toward Pacific Coast Highway.
The damp sand had soaked through my chinos. I was cold, and my legs were shaky as I fumbled with the lock on the door. Muldoon was pumped up with guard-dog adrenaline and tried to wiggle out of my hug to reenact his moment of glory. As far as I knew, Deegan hadn’t gotten into the house again, but just the same, I checked the shredded wheat box for the two medical charts. They were still there.
I changed into dry clothes and burned some of Pookie’s incense, but that didn’t help calm my nerves. I considered moving into a motel in case Deegan came back, but decided against it. No one was going to frighten me out of my house. I decided to return my life to some semblance of order, so I checked my telephone messages. There weren’t any. Then I checked the mailbox.
Among the bills and junk mail was a letter with no return address. I opened it and found a copy of a legal document, stating that Sylvia Branch was petitioning the court to reopen probate on my grandmother’s estate, claiming that new evidence had surfaced showing that the prior will was invalid. The document ordered me to appear at a prehearing meeting with her attorneys in two weeks.
I felt like kicking something. I was about to call Eric to see if he could reach Sheldon Greenblatt, when I remembered the telephone call on the beach. I checked the readout panel on the cell phone but didn’t recognize the number. When I dialed, a man answered in a low southern twang. In the background were sounds of a heated conversation and canned TV laughter. I wondered if there was a half-finished six-pack on a TV tray next to the La-Z-Boy.
“Somebody just called me,” I said.
“Mary Jo Felder?”
I froze. It had to be someone from Sunland. No one else knew that name and this number.
“Yeah,” I said cautiously.
“Roy Trebeau. You were out at the warehouse a couple days ago, asking questions. Said you were some kind of PI.”
It had to be the cowboy I’d met at the electrical panel.
“Well, I’m not a PI, technically speaking.”
“Looky here,” he said impatiently. “You don’t run any games on me, and I won’t run none on you. You investigating Anton Maslansky or not?”
I paused to consider the consequences of my answer, then said yes, thinking, great, now the authorities could add impersonating a private investigator to my rap sheet.
“I didn’t tell you the other day,” he said, “but I know the guy, and some of them other folks you talked about, too.”
There was a click on the line. Roy seemed irritated by the interruption but nonetheless excused himself to take a call waiting. Within ten seconds there was another click, and he was back.
“Gotta take care of something,” he said in that slow drawl. “You want to look at what I got, come by tonight.”
What did he mean by “what I got”? For a moment I wondered if he was planning a meet-and-greet at the door in a leopard thong and an AHH-EEE-AHH, you Jane. In any event, I didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking.
“It’s kind of late,” I said. “Maybe you could just tell me what you have, because I’m really only interested in—”
“Don’t get so jumpy, Mary Jo,” he said, as if he’d read my mind and placed my concerns somewhere between boring and humorous. “I don’t wanna jump your bones. But I am trying to do something that might do us both some good.” There was a short pause before he continued. “Tell you what: I’m goin out later. How about I leave the stuff in the mailbox? You have any questions, you call me tomorrow.”
Sounded fair enough. “What’s your number at work?” I asked.
“Afraid I won’t be there. Got laid off today.”
My appearance at Sunland hadn’t exactly wowed Irene Borodin. I wondered if she’d seen me talking to Roy and punished him for it. Not likely. Even if Roy had asked a few questions that made her sweat, she wouldn’t have tipped her hand like that.
“Sorry,” I said, and meant it.
“Don’t be. ‘Laid off’ was the words she used, but I got a hunch the Black Widow sent me packin on account of something else, and I think she’s gonna be sorry about that. Yes, indeed, I do.” There was resolve but also a tinge of triumph in his words. “I can’t leave this guy hanging on the line any longer. You interested, then write this down.”
As I took down his address, cautious Tucker said, “It’s after ten p.m., much too late to go to a strange man’s house by yourself. Ask Venus to go with you.” But reckless Tucker piped in with “Oh, come on! Don’t be a wimp. Trebeau is probably just a nice guy with a lot of problems—a closet gentleman. And even if he tries to surprise you at the door, you have your cell phone, and your running shoes are in the gym bag in the car. Go for it!”
There was only one snag with that last plan: Reckless Tucker had been wrong before. Just in case she was wrong again, about Trebeau, I left a note for my neighbor, Mrs. Domanski, telling her where I’d gone. I also programmed Duane Kleinman’s pager number into my cell phone’s memory. That satisfied cautious Tucker.
While searching the Internet for driving directions to Reseda, I found myself humming “Climb Every Mountain.” I thought, gosh, if the FBI didn’t buy my claims of innocence, I could always become a motivational speaker for the girls in cellblock D.
IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN by the time I got to Roy Trebeau’s neighborhood, which was made up of small one-story houses barricaded behind window bars and chain-link fences. The streets were dark. I drove slowly, looking for house numbers on the curb, but most of them were either painted out or worn off. I couldn’t see anything.
I made a couple of passes before I found the address, partially obscured by a camellia bush. The house was a small white clapboard, no more than a thousand square feet. A red Ford pickup was parked on the lawn. It had a bumper sticke
r on the rear windshield that read, You can’t fix STUPID. Something to consider, I thought.
A battered black metal mailbox, missing a nail on one side, was hanging at a tilt. It was empty. Damn! Had Roy forgotten plan A? No light shone from behind the drawn curtains, but the TV was blaring, so I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again . . . nothing. Maybe Roy was already gone, or maybe he was changing into his Tarzan getup.
I walked toward the back of the house, where a light was shining through frilly yellow and white café curtains hanging from the kitchen windows. I peeked inside. Unwashed dinner dishes filled the sink. An unopened bottle of red wine, the kind wrapped in raffia to make it seem more Italian, sat on a square wooden table next to a couple of wineglasses. Someone had put an unopened bag of Doritos in a white bowl labeled in blue letters, Roy’s Chips. It definitely looked as though he was planning a party. I felt a little apprehensive and hoped he was expecting someone other than me.
Several sheets of paper were rolled like a newspaper and propped inside the chip bowl. Since Doritos don’t come with instructions, I was guessing it was the information Roy had told me about on the phone. Either he’d forgotten to leave it in the mailbox, or he wasn’t a gentleman after all.
I tapped on the glass and tried the knob . . . locked. A gray metal toolbox sat in front of a doggie door big enough for a small pony. I hoped Cujo wouldn’t come out to greet me before jungle boy introduced us.
I walked all around the house, but obviously there was no one home. I’d been stood up, and I was more than a little miffed. I could have been at home with Muldoon, sharing a tofu dog cookie and a glass of my own cheap wine. Roy told me he was going out. He was probably in a hurry and forgot to leave the stuff in the mailbox as he had promised. To think that what I’d come for was probably sitting in a chip bowl on Roy’s kitchen table really hiked my blood pressure.
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