“I’ve met him,” Herb said stiffly. “What’s he doing here?”
“Keeping his mother company, I presume. She has dialysis a couple of times a week.” At Joni’s wave, the van halted directly in front of her.
The window hummed down. “What’s up?” Fred called across the passenger seat.
She told him.
“No problem. I’ll jump-start your car and follow you to the garage. We don’t want you getting stranded along the way.” He lifted his cell phone to his ear. “I’ll ask Kathryn to run by the day-care center and meet us at your house. We can pick up fast food for everybody.”
Joni hated to impose, especially when she’d planned to give the Owenses a night off, but it was a sensible way to deal with the situation. “That should work out fine. Herb, thanks, but I know they need you inside.”
The older man yielded. “As long as someone’s looking after you.” He strolled toward the building, not seeming to mind the rain pattering around him.
It had turned into a downpour by the time Fred got her car started. The motor sputtered alarmingly, and Joni was grateful that her garage was only a block away.
They arrived just as the mechanic was leaving. He let her put the car inside and promised to work on it first thing in the morning.
Fred’s wipers arced across the windshield in a steady beat, welcoming Joni to the van. He smiled as he watched her put the flower arrangement in back.
“That’s right, it’s your thirtieth birthday, isn’t it?” he said. “Such a special occasion. You know, I’m glad I have a chance to celebrate it with you.”
Reaching across the seat, he patted her hand.
DIRK WAS CROSSING the outer office when the phone rang. On the verge of ignoring it, he realized that it might be Joni.
“Peterson Printing, Dirk speaking,” he said into the mouthpiece.
“Thank goodness I reached you!” The woman’s voice was sharp with tension. “This is Kathryn Owens, Bobby’s mother. Do you know where Joni is?”
Fear coalesced inside him. “She’s not answering the phone at home or at work. Why? What’s happened?”
“She promised to pick up the boys, but the day-care director just called,” Kathryn said. “She’s late, which isn’t like her.”
He checked his watch. Ten past six. Even if he’d just missed Joni at the hospital, she should have reached the center by now.
“I’ll run over to the hospital and retrace her route,” he said. “You’ll get the kids?”
“Of course,” Kathryn said. “I’ll take them to the Halloween party at the church.” She gave him the phone number there. “And, Dirk...”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t want to speak out of turn, and maybe this isn’t relevant, but...”
What key piece of information had this woman been sitting on? Dirk’s instincts screamed at him to reach across the phone line and shake her, but instead he said with tight control, “Tell me everything. Quickly.”
“Fred and I have been having some problems.” Strain made her tone high and thin. “He’s Bobby’s stepfather. My first husband died in a car crash. I didn’t know much about Fred before we got married five years ago. He lived with his mother, and she’s really nice. I met her at the supermarket where I work.”
They didn’t have time for Kathryn’s life story. “Is there something you’ve learned about him? Something that makes you suspicious?”
“Nothing definite,” she said. “I thought it was odd that his driver’s license gives his name as Frederick Owens but on some of his papers it’s Allen Frederick Owens. Also, I came across two social security cards with different numbers.”
“Can you read them out to me?” Using a middle name as a first name might not be unusual, but honest people didn’t carry two social security cards.
“Just a minute.” Time dragged until she picked up the phone again. “Here they are.” She gave him the numbers.
“Anything else?” Dirk asked.
Kathryn made a noise that was almost a sob. “He plays basketball a lot of nights, or that’s what he says he’s doing, but I don’t know whom he plays with or where, and he gets angry when I ask. That’s not all. I feel so stupid. I—I didn’t want to make the connection, I didn’t mention anything to Joni and now—”
“What else?” The words rapped out harshly. “What else, Kathryn?”
“Two of my kitchen knives are missing,” she said. “The first one, I thought I’d just misplaced it, but I haven’t been able to find the second one since I fixed dinner on Saturday.”
Kim DeLong had been stabbed to death that same night. So far, the murder weapon hadn’t turned up.
“Go get the boys.” Dirk needed to make sure Jeff was taken care of. “I’ll handle the rest. Is he driving your van?”
“Yes. Please hurry.” She sounded scared.
He didn’t even know for sure that Fred was anywhere near Joni, Dirk reminded himself as he raced to his car. Nevertheless, he dialed the police as he took off for the hospital.
RAIN MUST HAVE BEEN falling heavily in the mountains inland, because Viento del Mar Creek was spilling over its banks. It had narrowed San Bernardo Road to one lane in each direction.
“What a mess,” Fred said as they inched forward in a line of steaming cars.
“Maybe we should forget about stopping for food,” Joni said. “I hate to make Kathryn wait. She doesn’t even have a key to my house.”
“She can use the one you hide,” Fred said.
“It’s not there anymore.” Joni peered out into a blur of passing lights. “Anyway, I changed the locks.”
“Smart move.” He seemed remarkably jovial, considering that most men would be pounding their horns by this time. “We can’t have you going hungry on such an important occasion.”
“Oh, I can always find something in the fridge,” she said. “But I suppose you’re right. We don’t want the boys to fill up on candy.”
After the two eastbound lanes tunneled into one, the traffic picked up. Through the rain, the oncoming headlights and neon signs formed a blurry glare.
As they crossed the bridge, it struck Joni that in the three years since Bobby and Jeff met at school, she’d never been alone with Fred before. Or if she had, the occasion hadn’t stuck in her memory.
She glanced at him and found that, even now, it was hard to think of Fred apart from the roles of Kathryn’s husband and Bobby’s father. Everything about him, from his light brown hair and pleasantly rounded face to the spreading waistline, seemed designed to blend into a crowd.
All she knew about his background was that he’d once aspired to play professional baseball and that he remained strongly attached to his mother. Fred was, she guessed, in his early forties, and he and Kathryn must have been married at least nine years in order to have an eight-year-old son.
The van eased into the drive-through line of a fried-chicken restaurant. Around the building’s eaves, Halloween decorations sagged in the rain.
“How’s your mother?” Joni asked. When Fred continued staring at the taillights ahead of them, she added, “I know dialysis patients sometimes have a hard time accepting their dependence on a machine.”
“Oh, she doesn’t mind the machine as much as the dietary restrictions.” Turning toward her, he studied Joni. “Say, why don’t we skip this and I’ll take you to the Chalet for a steak? That would be more festive.”
“The Chalet?” The town’s most expensive restaurant sat on a hill several miles out of town. “What about Kathryn and the kids?”
He laughed. “I almost forgot them! Must be something about you, Joni. You could make a man lose his bead.”
Gooseflesh prickled her arms. Obviously, Fred was joking, but didn’t he realize how creepy it sounded?
They reached the order window, and she had to concentrate on which side dishes to select and how many drinks they needed. Then she and Fred fished out their wallets; she wanted to pay, but he wouldn’t let her.
&nb
sp; “It’s my treat,” he said. “Then let’s stop at a bakery and I’ll buy you a birthday cake. What do you say?”
“Thanks, but I’d rather get home.” Joni was relieved when he didn’t press the point.
The server handed him a cardboard bucket, several paper sacks and a cardboard tray of drinks. The smell of fried chicken filled the van.
Fred stuffed the food containers around her and placed the drink holder in her lap. She felt trapped, but she wasn’t sure why.
As they turned onto the main road, Joni became increasingly nervous. The hazardous driving conditions must be affecting her appetite because she was no longer even hungry.
Something dark swung toward the windshield. With a thump, a hideous grinning face hit the glass. Joni shrieked. The drink tray slid toward the floor. She grabbed it, barely in time.
A scarecrow. The dangling figure must have torn loose from its ties and hit the car.
“There ought to be a law against that kind of thing,” she grumbled. “We could’ve had an accident.”
“I found it kind of exciting.” Fred wore an expression that bordered on gloating. “Don’t you enjoy the sense of danger?”
“Not particularly.” Why was he talking this way? Usually he understood her feelings and offered helpful insights. Tonight, Fred seemed like a different person.
Joni’s muscles tensed so hard her ribs ached. Alarm bells jangled in every nerve ending.
Painfully, she forced herself to examine the odd way Fred was behaving. Patting her hand, tucking the food around her, offering to take her to the Chalet. Most of all, wearing an air of triumph. He clearly enjoyed having her to himself and being in control of the situation.
The clues were all there; she just hadn’t put them together, she realized with a jolt. Or was she getting carried away as she’d done with Charlie?
Fred had overheard Kim’s tirade against her after the soccer game on Saturday. He also knew she kept a key hidden behind the house. He could have used it to get inside on Sunday.
Two days ago, Edith Owens had finished her dialysis session at lunchtime. If Fred had dropped by to visit during her session, he would have been in the hospital at the right time to tamper with Joni’s lunch.
Fred? Could Fred be the killer?
She tried to get a grip on her fears. It wasn’t a foolproof case, not by a long shot. Most likely, he had alibis for the times of the murders.
The van turned into Canyon Acres. Her panic abated.
They were only a few blocks from home. Kathryn and the boys would be waiting.
Chapter Sixteen
The dispatcher said Detective MacDougall was still in the field but offered to transfer Dirk to the watch commander. He thanked her and kept the phone pressed to his ear as he waited.
Although the printing plant lay only half a mile from the hospital, he’d been crawling through traffic for ten minutes. The way the rain was coming down, the situation could only get worse. He had to reach someone who could do something.
“Sergeant Cruz,” a woman’s voice announced in his ear.
“This is Dirk Peterson,” he said. “Joni Peterson is missing and I’ve just learned that a family friend may be hiding a criminal history.”
Since he hadn’t stopped to check on Fred in the computer, Dirk was making a broad assumption. He didn’t care. He would rather risk being wrong than lose Joni from an excess of caution.
“What is this individual’s name?” the sergeant asked. She didn’t ask who Joni was or what was going on; she must be well aware of the case.
“Frederick Owens. He also uses the name Allen Frederick Owens,” Dirk said. “He has a couple of different social security numbers, and his wife is missing two knives from her kitchen.”
“Are you saying he’s abducted Mrs. Peterson?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But she failed to pick up her son after work. Owens knew her schedule, and his wife can’t locate him.”
“Do you have a description of his and Mrs. Peterson’s vehicles?”
He provided them, along with the social security numbers. Computer keys clicked as she entered the information. “Joni should’ve left her job at the hospital an hour ago,” he added. “I’m trying to get there, but the traffic’s terrible.”
“We’re working a lot of accidents and the creek’s flooding,” the sergeant said. “I’ll call Detective MacDougall in the field and put out an APB on both subject vehicles. Is there a number where I can reach you?”
Dirk gave it to her.
“Let us know if you find Mrs. Peterson,” she said. “I hope this is a false alarm.”
“You and me both,” he said.
The conversation failed to reassure him. The storm had already spread the police too thin, and he doubted they would treat Joni’s disappearance as an emergency. Lots of people might be temporarily missing tonight, thanks to the weather.
Minutes dragged by until, at last, he turned into the hospital. Whipping into a space marked for emergencies, Dirk yanked out the key and ran inside.
In the lobby, he stopped a candy striper. “I need to find Joni Peterson. It’s urgent. She works in the—”
“I know where she works,” said the teenager, a pretty African-American girl with a serious expression. “I’ll take you there.” She moved quickly ahead of him.
The public relations office was locked and dark. Dirk smacked his hand against the wall in frustration.
The candy striper considered for a moment. “There’s a blood donor drive tonight. Maybe she stopped to donate.”
Unlikely, but he might as well check. “Where is it?”
The teenager sprinted beside him along another corridor. Near the end, signs pointed donors toward an auditorium. After wishing him luck, the girl returned to her duties.
Dirk’s gaze swept the large room. People waited on folding chairs; nurses in white tended the donors; volunteers took medical histories at a couple of tables. No sign of Joni.
At the aftercare table, Herb was pouring juice. Catching sight of Dirk, he set down the pitcher and whisked toward him. “You looking for Joni?” Herb asked. “She left half an hour ago.”
Relief rushed through Dirk. “She’s all right, then?”
“Sure, she’s all right.” His grandfather regarded him quizzically. “Something wrong?”
“Her friend Kathryn called. Joni didn’t show up at the day-care center.”
“Kathryn?” Herb’s eyebrows rose in dismay. “Kathryn Owens?”
Dirk’s anxiety returned, full force. “You sound surprised.”
“Her husband said he was going to call and have her get the kids,” the older man said.
“You talked to Fred?”
“Joni’s car wouldn’t start,” Herb said. “Fred happened by and offered her a ride.”
Fear tightened Dirk’s throat. Fred hadn’t called Kathryn. There could only be one reason why he would have lied.
“It’s him,” he said. “He’s the killer.”
THE HOUSE SAT ON THE HILL, barely discernible against the dark backdrop of trees. No lights shone at this end of the street, not even at Celia’s place. To Joni, her home looked desolate and forlorn.
In the heavy rain, there was no sign of trick-or-treaters. None of the usual evening joggers and dog walkers would brave this kind of deluge, either. Right now, Joni wished the press were harassing her; at least there might be someone hanging around.
As the van turned into her driveway, she tried to spot Kathryn’s station wagon. When they crested the rise, her last hope died. The turnaround was empty.
“They’re not here yet,” she said.
“No?” Fred didn’t sound surprised. “Maybe they decided to go to the church party instead.”
He knew as well as she did that Kathryn wouldn’t change plans without notifying them. Joni could hardly breathe.
Frantically, she tried to remember what Fred had said on his end of the phone conversation. But he’d placed the call from insi
de his van; she hadn’t heard any of it.
He might not have called Kathryn at all.
Come to think of it, why had he been driving through the hospital parking lot at six o’clock? On Tuesday, Edith Owens had undergone dialysis in the morning. Why, two days later, would her son be visiting her in the evening?
Maybe he’d known Joni would be stranded and would need a ride. Maybe he’d disabled her car and driven around until she showed up.
Disbelief clouded her mind. She’d known this man for three years, trusted him with her son, become friends with his wife.
Fred switched off the engine. Rain sheeted against the roof and windows, isolating them.
When he turned toward Joni, she saw a face different from the one she knew. Subtle changes—a slackness of skin tone, a fixedness of the eyes, a looseness about the mouth—transformed Fred Owens into a stranger.
She swallowed hard. Instinctively, she tried not to let him see that she’d noticed anything. Maybe if she pretended everything was normal, he wouldn’t take action.
“We need to call Kathryn,” she said. “To make sure she’s picked up the kids.”
“Forget Kathryn,” he said.
“Then we should go to the day-care center ourselves.”
“This is our special time.” His voice took on a wheedling quality, with a threat lingering below the surface. “Don’t ruin it, Joni. Don’t make me punish you again.”
“Is that what you were doing?” It corresponded to what Dirk had surmised, yet she could still hardly comprehend it. “Framing me for murder? Breaking into my house, threatening me at work?”
“I knew they’d never charge you with murder,” he said. “You needed to be taught a lesson. You’re too independent, Joni. You need to let me take charge now.”
“I don’t understand.” But she did, all too well. He wanted to control and dominate her. Dirk had been right.
“It’s your birthday,” Fred went on in that same hypnotic tone. “Turning thirty, that’s important. It’s when you put your mistakes behind you and start over.”
“It is?” She wished she had a weapon. Or at least some way to bolt out of the van without having to extricate herself from all this food.
His Secret Son Page 18