Hangman

by Faye Kellerman

  “Okay. What about the Mercedes that was junked?”

  “I have nothing on Atik Jains. He may have owned the car, but he doesn’t have a California DMV license. I’m checking out-of-state licenses. I put him into the system, but nothing came back. Earlier this afternoon, I went back to the hotel and questioned what’s left of the staff. No one saw Terry leave in her car. I don’t know what to tell you. Could be her getaway was planned way before Sunday and she could be anywhere.”

  “That is true.”

  “I know we haven’t tracked down her husband, but without a body, a crime scene, and witnesses, our leads are thinning. It’s sounding like either the husband did it or she disappeared on her own.”

  “I’m beginning to favor the disappearance.”

  “Why?”

  “I spoke to Gabe and he told me something interesting. He once found his mother talking to an Indian doctor—an older man, a visiting cardiologist whose father’s a maharaja in India.”

  “Does that mean he’s wealthy?”

  “I would think so.”

  “Do we have a name?”

  Decker fudged on this one. “Gabe never knew it.”

  “Why did the doctor stick in his mind? I’m sure his mother talked to a zillion doctors.”

  “That’s just it. She didn’t. All he said was that there was just something about the way the two of them were talking that tweaked his antenna. You know how perceptive kids can be to that kind of thing.”

  “Did he say anything to his mother?”

  “He asked who she was talking to. That’s when she told him he was a visiting cardiologist whose father was a maharaja.”

  “And?”

  “That was it.”

  “You think she was having an affair with this guy?”

  “Could be. And if she did run off to India, it sounds like the man is wealthy and well protected. She’d need both to escape her husband.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “It’s an open case. If she is alive, eventually she’ll try to make contact with her son. So from my perspective, we wait.”

  “Where is the kid?”

  “With me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah, let’s leave it at that.” Call waiting beeped in. Marge’s number in the window. “I’ve got a call that I have to take. Keep me posted.”

  “I will. Bye.”

  He depressed the button. “What’s going on, Sergeant?”

  “Sorry to disturb you on Shabbos,” she said. “We found Mandy Kowalski.”

  Decker sat up. “Dead?”

  “No, she’s alive, but not in good shape. She has burns on fifty percent of her lower body. She’s in a medically induced coma.”

  “That’s awful.” Decker felt his heartbeat race. “What happened?”

  “She was brought into Las Vegas Medical Center as a Jane Doe, the victim of a one-car crack-up in the middle of the Mojave. The original thoughts by the police were suicide because only one car was involved and there was Xanax in her system. After we ID’d her as Mandy Kowalski, we’re considering homicide.”

  “Like someone depressed the accelerator and let her fly?”

  “Maybe. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d be drag-racing in the desert.”

  “How’d you find her?”

  “I didn’t. Las Vegas did all the legwork.” She filled him in on the details. “They said they went the extra mile because we went the extra mile and came down.”

  “Are you sure it’s her?”

  “Positive. Her lower body is burned but her face survived relatively unscathed. She has bruises from the air bag deploying, but definitely recognizable.”

  “If it was a homicide, wonder why the killer didn’t disable the air bag?”

  “Maybe he’s not so clever. And of course, it could have been a suicide. Maybe she witnessed something that she couldn’t live with—like the murder of her friend.”

  “Could be.”

  “Mandy’s mom, Frieda Kowalski, is a widow. She lives in Mar Vista. I don’t have the address, but I do have the phone number.” She gave it to Decker. “Could you send someone out to let her know what’s going on?”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll want to talk to her anyway. What about Garth Hammerling?”

  “No bead on him yet, but we haven’t even started talking to people. I do have a list of hotels that he frequented. Scott and I will talk to as many people as we can. Mostly he stayed in North Las Vegas.”

  “I thought one of his friends said he stayed on the Strip.”

  “He could have stayed there, too. Maybe he likes to hop around.”

  “When is Mandy due to come out of her coma?”

  “They’ll start waking her up tomorrow, but even once she’s conscious, she’ll be doped up for a while. The doctor says she’ll be out of it for days. Plus, there’s a good chance that she won’t remember much about the accident or what led up to it.”

  “Will she remember Adrianna’s murder if she was there?”

  “I have no idea how the accident will affect her memory. I’m not a doctor, but even the doctors don’t know. We’re all hoping against odds that she’ll be able to shed some light on Garth Hammerling.”

  “Do we know for certain that she was traveling with Garth?”

  “No, we don’t know that. But we found Mandy and she’s alive and maybe she can tell us something.”

  “Amen to that,” Decker said. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Kowalski. When she hears the news, she’s going to want to go to Vegas. I’ll find out her schedule. You pick her up and take her to the hospital.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You and Scott work over the weekend. I’ll come relieve you on Monday. I want to be there when Mandy is able to speak.”

  “Come down whenever you want. No shortage of hotels.” Marge thought a moment, then said, “Why are you working today? Isn’t it your birthday?”

  “Actually, it’s tomorrow. And I’m going out with the entire brood to dinner. But I’ll probably be working during the day.” Decker brought her up-to-date on Roxanne Holly’s murder and her missing necklace. “There must be more than one necklace identical to the diamond R, so we’re looking through other strangulation cases, trying to find another piece of jewelry in Tinsley’s stash associated with a murder.”

  Marge said, “So Tinsley’s right back up at the top of the list.”

  “Absolutely. He was with Adrianna and Crystal at Garage on Sunday night. We’re still trying to get a timeline on him for the day of the murder.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s walking around under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Kathy Blanc wasn’t happy about that. If she knew what we’ve discovered, she’d probably kill me. I’ll call you if I find anything else on Tinsley.”

  “Likewise on Garth. Oh, I forgot to tell you. My phone will be off between eight and ten tonight. We’re going to see O.”

  “The Cirque du Soleil show?”

  “Yeah. Silver and Major, the cops helping us on the case, insisted we go to the show. Then we’re going out for dinner. But I’ll turn my phone back on when we eat.”

  “Glad you’ve scheduled in R and R,” Decker said flatly.

  “I suspect, Rabbi, that you’re being sarcastic,” Marge said. “But being the naive dolt that I am, I’m going to take your words at face value and simply say thank you.”

  TALKING TO FRIEDA Kowalski got him out of the office and that was the only positive aspect of the visit. When he broke the news about Mandy, her mother gasped and put her hand to her chest, stumbling backward. Decker helped her with her balance, sat her down on her floral sofa, and brought her a glass of water, which she sipped. No tears in her eyes, but her freckled pale face had turned ashen. He waited until she could find her voice. The woman appeared to be in her early fifties, with a nest of teased red hair and dark eyes. She was a pixie; she probably weighed about a hundred pounds.

  When she finally did talk, she asked
for details. Decker told her what he knew, minimizing any gore, then helped her book a flight to Las Vegas.

  “Sergeant Dunn from my team is over there now.” Decker gave her Marge’s cell phone number. “She’ll pick you up at the airport and take you to the hospital.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “I know this is a hard time, but anything you can tell me about Mandy would be helpful: her hobbies, her friends, her boyfriends. Did she drink? Did she take drugs?”

  The woman looked stunned. “I rarely heard from her except for a dutiful call once every two weeks on Sunday. Tomorrow was the day.” She looked at Decker’s face. “It’s not that we didn’t get along. We’re just so…different. I was a single mom. I might not have done the best of jobs, but I took care of her.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  She nodded. Still no tears. “The truth is, even as a little girl, Mandy kept to herself. She was very secretive with friends and certainly about boyfriends.”

  “So there were boyfriends?” Decker asked.

  Frieda thought about that. “She went to the prom with a boy. I think that was the first and only time I ever saw her with the opposite sex.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Could it be Garth Hammerling?”

  “Garth who?” Frieda was kneading her hands together.

  “He’s a tech that works at St. Tim’s—where Mandy works.” Still no response. “Garth is missing. We’d like to talk to him.”

  “What does he have to do with Mandy?”

  “We’re not sure if he has anything to do with her. Right now, he’s just a person of interest.”

  “I can’t help you. I didn’t know much about Mandy when she lived with me. I certainly don’t know much about her since she left me…left home.”

  “Does she have a father?”

  “Everyone has a father. He took off when she was six months old. I don’t know where he is and he never sent me any child support. I think there was a time when she wanted to find him. I told her to go ahead, but leave me out of it.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “James Kowalski. I don’t know if she found him, and if she did, I don’t know what he told her. I figured if she ever did catch up with him, she should draw her own conclusions.” She stood up. “I should get some rest. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. Thank you for being so helpful.”

  “If you need anything, please call me.” Decker gave her his card.

  “Is she in a lot of pain?”

  “I’m sure they’ll do everything possible to keep her comfortable. I’ll be coming into Las Vegas on Monday to talk to Mandy. I’ll probably see you at the hospital.”

  “When are you coming?”

  “Sometime Monday afternoon.”

  “We may miss each other.” When Decker didn’t answer, she said, “Mandy never liked when I…crowded her. Besides, I’ve already missed a lot of work with my own medical issues.” She opened the door. “Thank you again. Bye now.”

  Still no tears in her eyes. She’d probably cried them dry a long time ago.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  BY NINE IN the evening, Decker’s eyes were buggy from staring at the computer and he was reaching diminishing returns. When Rina knocked on his office doorjamb, holding a big paper bag, he was grateful for the interruption. He rolled his chair away from his desk and stood.

  “Hey there.” He gave her a kiss. “What brings you into the bowels of purgatory?”

  “How about seeking wit and charm?”

  “Then you definitely came to the wrong place.”

  Rina sat down in front of her husband’s desk. “We had lots of leftovers from lunch. I thought you might be hungry.”

  “I should be. All I had today was coffee and this morning’s cereal.” He looked at the clock and sat down across from her. “I’m sorry I never made it home. It’s especially disappointing because the boys came all the way out to see me. Are they upset?”

  “Not at all.” Rina sat down. “We had a fine time, actually.”

  Decker was heartened and disheartened at the same time. “Yeah, everyone’s so used to being my being gone it’s like ‘what’s the big deal.’”

  “It’s not that we didn’t miss you. We toasted you in absentia.” She opened the bag and handed him a wrapped package. “Turkey sandwich on rye with horseradish and mustard. You will make it for dinner tomorrow, right? It’s in your honor.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then we’re all fine. What are you working on that’s consuming so much time?”

  “We found something suspicious at Chuck Tinsley’s apartment. We’re trying to find more suspicious evidence. I’ve been on the computer for the last four hours, but haven’t turned up anything useful. It’s a wonderful machine, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always open for business.”

  He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite.

  “Wow, this is good.” Another bite. “Eating is making me hungry.”

  “Sometimes it works that way.”

  “Delicious. Have anything to drink?”

  Rina reached into the bag. “Coke Zero or Dr Pepper?”

  “How about both?” His wife handed him the cans and he popped open the Dr Pepper. “On the plus side of the day, Marge and Scott also found a missing woman in a hospital in Las Vegas. A one-car crack-up. She’s in guarded condition, but alive.”

  “You don’t mean Terry, do you?”

  “No, not Terry.” Decker gulped down half the can of soda. “She’s still missing. I don’t reckon I’ll find her any time soon. It comes down to this. Either Donatti did it and since he’s a pro, we’ll probably never find her, or she’s in India with a billion other people. I’m certainly not going to look for her there. I already told the West L.A. detective on the case that if Terry is alive—and I think she is—she’ll eventually make contact with her son.”

  Rina nodded.

  “How’s Gabe doing? Did he eat with the family?”

  “Where else is he supposed to eat?”

  “Just wondering how he’s integrating himself. Are you getting him a piano?”

  “Renting him one. He’s paying for it with money his father gave him. It makes him feel like he’s pulling his weight.”

  “Is it a problem for you?” Decker countered. “Keeping the kid?”

  “Honestly, I’m okay with it. What about you? You seem to still have doubts.”

  “Of course I have doubts. There goes retirement and travel.”

  “Retirement would be very bad for you, and how much travel are you really going to do with your first grandchild on the way?”

  “Maybe not so much,” Decker admitted. “Cindy’ll need her gun to keep me away.”

  Rina smiled. “That’s my guy. So, since you’re not going to retire and a world cruise isn’t on the immediate horizon, we might as well give the kid a home.”

  Decker sneered. “As long as he doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t make a pass at my daughter, and doesn’t steal me blind, I suspect it’ll be okay.”

  “You know, it’s funny,” Rina said. “It’s not that I feel exceptionally compassionate. I’m okay with Gabe because he’s not a bother. He does his own thing and pops his head out once in a while to get fed.” Another pause. “You should hear him play, Peter. It transforms him into something otherworldly. Then he stops and he’s fourteen again.”

  “That’s right. He doesn’t drive yet. Terrific. That means one of us is going to have to take him to school.” Decker thought. “He’s not going to want to continue at a Jewish school. What are we going to do with his schooling?”

  “He’s got lessons arranged with this hotshot piano teacher in the middle of the school week at USC. He practices six hours plus a day. We should consider homeschooling him. Not you or me personally, but someone. He’s bright. I’m sure he could finish the high school curriculum in a year.”

  “Y
eah, he said something about going to Juilliard next year.”

  “He also told me that he’d like to go to a regular university like Harvard. Because of his talent, he has lots of options. If his mother is alive, she’s going to eventually try to reunite with him. He’s not only exceptional, but he is her only child.”

  Her only child. Decker raised an eyebrow. “I suppose we can deal with him living with us for a year or so—as long as he isn’t a psycho like his dad.”

  “Time will tell. So far, I don’t see any indication,” Rina told him. “Who’s the missing woman in the hospital?”

  “She’s a nurse—a former friend of Adrianna Blanc. Both of them worked at St. Tim’s. She disappeared a few days ago. While looking for Adrianna’s boyfriend in Las Vegas, Marge and Scott talked to a couple of cops who told them about a Jane Doe in the hospital. A one-car collision in the middle of nowhere could be an accident, suicide, or possible homicide. Whatever it was, she knows way more than she told us in our original interviews.” He finished his sandwich. “That went down well.”

  “You want dessert?”

  “No…well, what do you have?”

  “Apple pie.”

  “Leave it with me. I may succumb.” He checked his watch. “I’ll try to be home in an hour.”

  “That means two hours. So I’ll see you around eleven, okay?”

  “Fair enough.”

  Rina stood up. “I saw Wanda and Lee at their desks when I came in. There’s also half a chocolate cake in the bag for you to share.”

  “No wonder everyone loves you. No one cooks or bakes like you. You’re the candy man—the candy woman.”

  “That’s me.” Rina grinned. “I spread good cheer and calories wherever I go.”

  THE HIT CAME a little before eleven on Wanda’s computer: an opal ring surrounded by diamond chips set into gold plate. The piece was a high school graduation gift to Erin Greenfield from her grandparents.