Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 03 - A Deadly Change of Heart

by Gina Cresse

  His pale face nodded. “We have a whole team of lawyers.”

  I gave him a worried look. “I don’t mean SONGS. I mean you.”

  The expression on his sweaty face reminded me of someone who was about to be sick. I closed the door behind me and headed for the exit. I had a feeling things would be heating up soon at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, and it wasn’t going to be from a nuclear reaction.

  Sam was waiting on the dock next to the Plan C when I arrived home. I approached him cautiously, wondering if I was in big trouble.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Fine. You got my message?”

  “I did.” He nodded toward the sixty-foot sailboat tied in the slip. “Nice boat.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped over the railing. “Come on in. I’ll show you around.”

  He followed me into the main salon. I noticed the message light flashing on my answering machine. He noticed, too.

  “Probably my messages. I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

  “Did you come up with anything? Got any ideas who tried to kill me last night?” I asked.

  “No. You have a description of the vehicle?”

  “It was dark. All I could see were headlights,” I explained.

  He frowned at me. “What were you doing out there?”

  “You know what I was doing. I told you in my message. Ralph Campbell was on the run and I was following him. Whoever it was didn’t want me to catch up with him. It’s probably Ralph’s partner in crime,” I speculated.

  “Better try another theory,” he said.

  I walked into the galley and opened the refrigerator. “Want something to drink? I’ve got iced tea, juice, water…” I offered.

  “Iced tea. Thanks,” he replied.

  I poured two glassed and handed him one. “What do you mean ‘another theory?’” I asked.

  Sam took a long drink of tea, then set the glass on a coaster. “I got called out late last night.”

  I stared at him, waiting for more. “And…?”

  “Ralph Campbell’s dead. Murdered.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The car Ralph Campbell was driving was found wrapped around the trunk of an old oak tree. His body was nearly inseparable from the mangled frame of the Volvo. There were no witnesses to the accident, and I wondered how Sam could be sure it wasn’t more than just that—an accident. Ralph was in a panic. Maybe he took the turn too fast and lost control. Maybe he thought about a life on the run, or worse, in prison and decided to end it all. I ran those possibilities by Sam. He shook his head.

  “Coroner owed me a favor. He put a rush on Campbell’s autopsy,” Sam explained.

  “And…?”

  “Campbell was dead before he ever hit the tree. Had a bullet in his brain. Forty-five caliber. Entered the skull just behind his left ear.”

  I shivered at the thought. “Guess a seatbelt wouldn’t have made a difference, then,” I said.

  Sam shook his head, again. “So, whoever tried to get you out of the picture may have been on Ralph’s tail to begin with. He probably didn’t want an audience.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember every detail from the night before. Had I seen any other cars parked in front of Campbell’s house? I couldn’t recall anything. I was doing the following, so I wasn’t expecting to be followed myself. I snapped my fingers and opened my eyes, searching for my purse.

  “After my near train disaster, I called all the numbers in Diane’s phone book to see who wasn’t home at the time,” I said as I crossed the salon and pulled the folded copy of Diane’s phone book from my purse. I handed it to Sam and pointed out the crossed out names.

  “Those people were home, so I figure they’re off the suspect list,” I explained.

  Sam studied the copies. “What are you doing with this?”

  “I copied Diane’s phone book before I gave it to you,” I admitted.

  “Why?” he questioned.

  I didn’t say a word, but gave him a look that said exactly what I was thinking.

  “Stupid question,” he replied, reading my mind.

  I pointed to the book, again. “Bradley Parker wasn’t home. He had to leave on an unplanned business trip according to his fiancé.”

  “So, you’re still set on making Bradley Parker a murderer?” Sam asked.

  “Well, now I’m not so sure. He didn’t sell the Voltage software to SONGS, so our theory that he killed Diane to protect his business from another lawsuit kind of fizzles,” I explained.

  “Our theory?”

  I ignored his comment. “So if Bradley didn’t do it, who did?”

  Sam paged through the copies in his hand. “None of these people are suspects. My guess is Campbell had a connection in the plutonium trade. Whoever that is didn’t want him saying any more than he already had.”

  “So you think Campbell told his story to Diane and that’s why she’s dead?” I asked.

  “Possible.”

  “But how did Ralph survive so long? Wouldn’t he have been killed at the same time? It doesn’t make sense,” I argued.

  “Ralph survived because he sold his soul to the devil. He took their money and got caught up in the consequences of his greed. The deeper he got in, the more he had to lose if he spilled his guts.”

  Garrett Henderson seemed genuinely pleased to see me. “Devonie. What a nice surprise. Any luck on your investigation?” he asked.

  I followed him into his office and took a seat across from his desk. “Not really,” I replied. The ringing phones and general noise from the hustle and bustle of the newspaper business was muted when he closed his door.

  “Too bad. I was hoping we could report Bradley Parker had been arrested for the brutal murder of his wife,” Garrett mused.

  “Actually, it’s looking like maybe he’s not the culprit after all,” I said.

  Garrett seemed surprised. “Really? What brings you to that conclusion?”

  I’d asked myself that same question over and over as I drove to the Union Tribune building. I couldn’t connect Bradley Parker to the plutonium missing from SONGS, but did that mean he wasn’t guilty? Before I’d discovered the Ralph Campbell connection, I was sure Parker killed Diane out of pure meanness. Maybe the fact that Diane had the “Science Project” video in her belongings was pure coincidence.

  “There’ve been new developments,” I offered. “It’s sort of complicated. It would be really helpful if I could find out exactly what Diane was working on when she died.”

  Garrett frowned and scratched his head. “That’s a tough one.” He glanced around the piles of papers and notebooks on his desk. He shoved some folders aside and pulled a leather binder from under a stack of black-and-white photographs. He opened it up flat on his desk and paged through the calendar section. “I’ll check my notes from last year,” he said, licking his thumb and turning the pages. He ran his finger down each page, searching for some specific entry. “Ah. Here. I have a note that Diane would cover the annual Kennel Club dog show. That was the week before she died.” He continued flipping pages. “She covered a fashion show, interviewed teachers and school board members—“

  “What school?” I interrupted.

  Garrett adjusted the glasses on his nose and studied his notes. “It doesn’t appear I wrote it down.”

  “Could it have been Lincoln High?” I asked, hopeful.

  Garrett searched his memory. He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the ceiling. “Lincoln, Lincoln,” he repeated. “No, I don’t think it was Lincoln. It was an elementary school. Ten-year-olds selling drugs to other ten-year-olds. Believe that? Now I remember. Terrible story.”

  I gawked at him. “Ten-year-old drug dealers?”

  “And users. Sorry society we’re living in,” he replied.

  I shook my head, dismayed. “How about something she might have been working on off the record. You know, a career-promoting story? A personal project?”

  G
arrett nodded. “She was a go-getter. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out she was pounding the pavement to dig up her own story.” He pushed his chair away from his desk and slid open a file drawer. “I copied her electronic files from her computer before we let her replacement use it. Anything she was working on for the paper would have been saved to the main server, but if she was working on something on her own, she probably would have kept it on her own machine until she was ready to show it to me.”

  He removed a box of computer disks from the drawer and flipped through them. “Here we are,” he said, pulling one labeled, “Diane Parker Files” out of the stack. He slid it into his disk drive and brought up the list of files contained on the disk. We both read down the short list of files in a folder called “Notes.”

  “Highland Elementary,” Garrett read aloud. “That’s the school story. Let’s see. Kennel club. That’s the fashion show,” he kidded. “I mean, dog show,” he continued, chuckling.

  His humor evaded me. I was concentrating on the last file in the list. “What’s this one?” I asked, pointing at the screen. “Spousal abuse.”

  Garrett hovered the mouse pointer over the file. “I don’t know. Let’s take a look,” he said, opening the document.

  The double-spaced manuscript painted itself on the screen and we both read the first few paragraphs in silence.

  Realizing Your Value

  By Diane Parker

  Do you ever wonder why you were put on this Earth? Do you ever think maybe you’re here by mistake? I asked myself those very questions every day for nearly twenty years.

  When I was a young girl, I couldn’t hear, or refused to listen to people who told me how pretty I was, or how smart I was, or how talented I was. I thought, They’re just saying that, but they don’t really mean it. Why couldn’t I believe them? They were my family, my parents, my close friends, my teachers. Why would they lie?

  Instead, I chose to believe the mean, hateful things that young people tend to say to other young people. People who don’t even know you. People who say things like, “You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re clumsy. You’re worthless.” People who cannot feel good about themselves without making others feel bad. People who feel they’ve raised themselves up a notch by knocking everyone else down.

  Diane’s manuscript went on for pages and made it clear that her soon-to-be ex-husband was one of those people who raised himself up by knocking others down. Garrett and I read it completely. I wanted to cry by the time I reached the end. I wanted to grab Bradley Parker by the throat and squeeze until his face turned blue. I wanted to strip him of all his arrogance and parade him, naked, in front of the whole world and let it see his ugliness.

  Garrett leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Wow. This is good. I wish she had let me see it when she wrote it.” He thought for a moment. “I might run it anyway. I think I’ll save it out on the server and have someone polish it up.” He clicked the “Save As” menu selection and saved a copy of the file to some remote computer in some distant room or building. Then he ejected the disk.

  “Can I have that?” I asked.

  Garrett studied it momentarily. “Sure. I saved what I wanted. Maybe you can get something out of it that will help nail the guy.” He handed me the disk. “You know, Parker had a big insurance policy on Diane. She was definitely worth more to him dead than alive.”

  So here I was, back at square one. I’d made a full circle. Maybe my first instinct was right. Bradley Parker killed his wife for the insurance money. He loved his business more than he loved her. Somehow, I had to prove it.

  My phone was ringing when I entered the Plan C. I managed to pick it up before the answering machine did. “Hello?”

  “Devonie. Oh, it’s awful. I can’t believe it. It’s off. The whole thing is off,” the voice sobbed.

  “Pamela?” I asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know what to do. I feel so stupid. How could I have been so—”

  “What’s wrong, Pamela? Tell me what happened,” I cut in.

  “It’s Bradley. How could he be so cruel? Did he think I had an unbreakable heart?” She sobbed into the phone.

  Sympathetic tears welled up in my eyes. “Where are you? At your apartment?” I asked.

  Her voice quivered. “Y…yes, but—“

  “I’ll be right there. You can have dinner with Craig and me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too painful,” she said.

  “Fine. We won’t talk about it. We’ll rent a movie. We’ll play cards. We’ll bake cookies. We’ll take your mind off it. You shouldn’t be alone right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Okay?”

  Her response was barely audible. “Okay,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

  I called Craig to warn him I was bringing an emotional female over for some serious mind-distraction therapy for a broken heart.

  “Should I get my medical bag?” he asked.

  “Not necessary,” I assured him. “But could you pick up a movie? No romantic comedies. No love stories.”

  “Okay. How about action adventure?” he suggested.

  “Perfect. And could you find some playing cards or some games?” I asked.

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  I thought for a moment. “Chocolate. Lots of chocolate.”

  “Got it. I’ll get the supplies, you get the patient. I’ll see you here in forty-five minutes.”

  “Thanks, Craig. You’re an angel,” I told him.

  “I do have to admit, I am the pick of the litter.”

  I smiled at his comment. He’s better than the pick of the litter. In my book, he’s best in show.

  I rang the bell at Pamela’s apartment. There was no answer. I held my ear to the door and rang it again. Yes, it was working. I could hear it ring inside. She was probably trying to get her face to look like she hadn’t been crying for hours. I waited. I rang again. I knocked. “Pamela?” I called. “Are you there?” No response. I banged on the door. “Pamela!”

  I made such a ruckus, the neighbor in the apartment next door poked his head out. “She’s not home,” he said, irritated.

  “I just spoke to her on the phone. I was supposed to pick her up. I think she may be in trouble in there,” I explained.

  “She’s not in trouble. She left five minutes ago. I saw her leave,” he insisted.

  “You’re sure she left?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “She left. Okay? Got in that fancy car of her boyfriend’s and they drove off.”

  “Her boyfriend? You mean Bradley?” I asked.

  “Yeah. That’s his name. They took off. Like I said, five minutes ago. So quit bangin’. I’m trying to watch the game.”

  I gawked at the beer-bellied, unshaven man standing in his doorway, wearing Bermuda shorts and a faded T-shirt. He stepped back and started to push the door closed. I shoved my hand out and held it firm against the door, preventing him from closing it.

  “Wait. Did she look like she…was she…did she want to go with him?” I asked.

  He gaped at me as though my question were as ridiculous as asking a fourteen-year-old boy if he’d rather be a professional baseball player or a garbage collector. “Did she want to go with him? Are you kidding? The guy drives a Mercedes. What do you think?”

  I smirked. “Of course. The Mercedes. If Charles Manson had only driven a Mercedes, I’m sure his trial would have had a completely different outcome. And just think how Attila the Hun could have changed his image if only Mercedes made a chariot.”

  He held his hands out and waved them in self-defense. “I just meant that—“

  “I know what you meant. All women are gold diggers who value money over kindness and character,” I interrupted.

  “I didn’t say that. Look lady, I just want to watch my game,” he insisted, trying to force the door closed.

  “Can you just tell me if she looked happy to be going with him?” I asked.

  He scratched the r
ound belly hanging out from the hem of his over-stretched T-shirt. “She was crying, but that don’t mean nothin’. Women cry all the time.”

  I nodded with acknowledgment. If his perception is that women cry all the time, then it must be his effect on them that has made this his reality.

  I removed my hand from his door and he slammed it shut. “Prince Charming,” I muttered to myself as I raced down the stairs and back to the Explorer. I jumped inside, started the engine, then sat there. Where would I go? What could I do? I banged my fists on the steering wheel in frustration. Bradley had hooked her and was reeling her in.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Can’t you put out an APB or something?” I demanded, grasping the edge of Sam’s desk as I stood over him, trying to assume an intimidating stance.

  “I could, if some crime had been committed,” Sam replied through gritted teeth.

  “Crime! I think he’s kidnapped her! That’s a crime,” I argued.

  “You have a witness?” he asked.

  “Yes. Her neighbor. He told me she was crying when she left with Bradley.”

  “Was she screaming and kicking? Biting? Punching? Fighting? Anything that might suggest she was being taken against her will?”

  “No. But—“

  “But nothing. If I arrested every guy who made his wife or girlfriend cry, the entire male population would be behind bars,” Sam insisted as he stood up and towered over me.

  I stood my ground and raised my chin so I could look him square in the eye. “What if Bradley did kill Diane? Pamela could be in trouble. You have to do something.”

  “What do you want me to do? We checked her apartment. No sign of trouble. We sent a patrol car by his house. No one there. He’s not at his office. There’s nothing to do but wait,” he insisted.

  “Wait for what? Pamela’s body to wash up on the beach?”

  I checked the paper for information on Ralph Campbell’s funeral. Graveside services would be held at a local cemetery. Afterward, friends could express their condolences to the family at the home of the widow’s sister. I noted the address and checked the time.