Hell on Wheels

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “Was he blackmailing anyone else that you know of?” Greg asked.

  “Who knows,” she said, her voice filled with exhaustion. She leaned against the sink. “As to how he supported himself, my father left him—the both of us—a lot of money when he died, but it’s held in trust with my mother in charge of it until we turn thirty-two, which will be soon. Then all the money comes to us equally.”

  “The two of you get it at the same time?” I asked. “Are you twins?”

  She nodded. “Yes, we are. He was the eldest by four minutes.” She started to tear up. Grabbing the dish towel, she dabbed at her eyes before continuing. “Mother paid most of Peter’s expenses and gave him an allowance, but she was very tightfisted with the funds. No matter how often Peter asked her for more, she refused.”

  “Is she just as stringent with your money?” I asked.

  She gave me a wry smile, then said, keeping her voice low, “My expenses for college and grad school were paid for as long as I went to a school close by. Like Peter, I’m given a small monthly allowance stipulated by the trust, but not a dime more. I have a job now, but it’s not enough to buy a place of my own.”

  “So you’re still living here?” Greg asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, until I get the trust money. After that, I’m leaving home and not looking back.”

  “Did Peter return to California when things got too hot for him with the drug charges?” I asked.

  Ann hesitated, then sighed. “I might as well tell you since I told all this to the police.” She swallowed, then continued. “Yes. That was part of the deal. Mother paid for his legal fees and got the charges dropped, but he had to return home. Otherwise he would have been on his own.” She turned to look back out the window at the lights shimmering around the pool. “He should never have returned. I told him if he came back she’d mess with his head, but he didn’t listen. If he had, he’d still be alive. But he was the crown prince—the center of the Tanaka universe. No matter what he did, Mother would protect him, and no matter where he went, she would always have a hold on him.”

  “Why are you telling us this, Ann?” Greg asked. “Just because you told the police, it doesn’t mean you have to tell us.”

  “Because I want you to know who Peter was or at least part of why he was who he was.” She turned back around. “I loved my brother, but I know he’s done bad things, even to me. He was arrogant enough before his accident, but after it his sense of entitlement became unbearable as Mother doted on him even more. I think in her heart she actually thinks Peter becoming a quad was a good thing. It made him more dependent on her. One of the reasons he went to Canada was to get away from her, or at least to cause her pain. The two of them had a sick codependence thing going on.”

  “And what about you?” I asked. “Where did you fit in?”

  Another wry smile. “I was in the background, handmaiden for the two of them. I often got caught in the middle of their fights and pettiness.”

  She stopped and held her breath, listening. “You should leave. Mother will be angry if she hears us speaking.”

  We started to go, then I turned around. “One more question, Ann. Who gets Peter’s half of the trust now that he’s dead?”

  She looked me straight in the eye when she answered, her head held high, and I saw her mother in her clear as day. “I do, and I think I’ve earned every single penny.”

  Nineteen

  “I am beginning to see why Peter Tanaka battered women,” I said once we were heading home.

  “Ya think?” Greg shot at me as he turned the van onto the freeway’s on-ramp. “That mother is a piece of work. If Ann doesn’t leave that house soon, she might end up just like her—controlling and bitter.”

  “I think she’s already there, honey. At least the bitter part.”

  Greg glanced at me. “Bitter enough to have poisoned Peter?”

  I shrugged. “It certainly crossed my mind.”

  I plucked my cell phone out of my bag and hit speed dial.

  “Who are you calling?” Greg asked.

  “Dev.” I put the phone on speaker. The sound of it ringing on the other end echoed in the van.

  “Hi, Odelia,” answered Dev after the second ring.

  “Hi back at ya,” I replied. “Greg and I are in the van, but we have a few questions for you and didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. Are you free to talk now?”

  “Shoot,” came the gravelly voice. “I’m home with my feet up and a beer in my hand. I have all the time in the world for you.”

  Greg and I exchanged smiles, both glad to hear our friend was getting some well-deserved down time.

  “It seems that Miranda might have been a call girl,” I told him. “Do you know anything about that?”

  There was a long pause on the other end, then a deep sigh. “Yeah, I heard the same, and some of the items found in the car back up the possibility.”

  “Did you know this when we spoke this morning?”

  “I did,” Dev answered.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We have no concrete proof, just someone’s say so and a few items that might or might not be used for professional reasons. If she was a pro, she might have been an independent, but Martinez is going to ask around to see if she worked with any known agencies. The amount of money hidden in the car suggests that whatever she was doing, it was at a high level.”

  Again Greg and I exchanged glances. “That’s a delicate way of putting it,” commented Greg.

  “Hey,” Dev said, “that’s the facts. There was no sign of an agency or pimp, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.” Dev paused. “You must have been speaking with the Tanakas.”

  No sense denying it. “Yes,” I told him. “We just left Peter’s mother and sister. The sister said Peter was blackmailing Miranda about her activities.”

  “Looks that way from what Martinez has told me, although it’s difficult to tell. It wouldn’t have been for huge sums of money, and all transactions, like with drugs, would have been carried out in cash so there would be little to no paper trail. Martinez found a small gun vault in Tanaka’s van with a lot of cash inside, including one envelope containing a thousand dollars. Miranda’s fingerprints were on the envelope.”

  I looked out the windshield as an idea came to me. “That could be why she was in the van with Tanaka,” I said into the phone. “Cory Seidman saw them together. She could have been giving Tanaka a payment. And while there, she might have handed him the water bottles that were already filled. That could be how her prints got on them.”

  I remembered what Ann said about the jug of sports drink. “Dev, was there also a large jug in the van containing the sports drink?”

  “Yes, there was. It was the kind you take on picnics, with a spigot. According to Martinez, it also had poison in it, and Miranda’s prints were on it too. She could have put the poison in, then made sure he refilled his single bottles with it.”

  “Or,” I suggested, “maybe his sister put the poison in the jug and sent it off with him, and he only got to the poison when he refilled the next day.”

  There was silence while the three of us chewed on the information. I thought I heard Dev stifle a belch, but I wasn’t sure.

  Greg shook his head, not on board with my theory. “Tanaka would have used part of the contents of that jug on Saturday. If the poison was in it, he would have gotten it then. Most players stay overnight on Saturday in San Diego,” he explained. “If that jug needed to be refilled on Sunday with a fresh batch, it would have been done at the hotel before Tanaka left for the game.”

  “So that leaves Ann off the hook,” I noted.

  “Was Tanaka able to fill it himself?” asked Dev.

  “I’m not so sure about the jug because it would be heavy,” Greg answered. “But once it was filled with water and placed in his van, he’d be able to mix in the drink powder and refill his single bottles himself. He was like Rocky—he had limited use of his hands but sti
ll decent function. But honestly, two-and-a-half gallons should have lasted him most of the weekend, especially if he supplemented his sports drink with drinking regular water.”

  “The timeline for Tanaka’s hydration is the key here,” Dev noted. “If he used any part of that jug before the final game, he would have died if the poison was in it already. That poison wasn’t added until later, closer to the playoff game.”

  “Dev’s right,” Greg said, glancing my way. “The poison in the jug could only have been put in later in the day on Sunday.”

  “It still could have been Miranda,” Dev noted. “She could have slipped the poison into the jug somewhere along the line. Besides Tanaka’s, her prints were the only ones on the jug and the bottles.”

  “Not his sister’s or his mother’s?” Greg asked with surprise.

  “Nope,” Dev answered.

  “Then who filled it and put it the van for Tanaka?” asked Greg. “If it was done at home, it would have been one of the Tanaka women, and their prints would be on it. I’m thinking that whoever put the poison in there wiped the jug down good after, indicating that it was done before Tanaka and Miranda touched it—another reason I’m leaning toward Miranda not being the killer.”

  “By the way, how is Rocky? Do you know?” I asked.

  “Still in a coma,” Dev told us. “Doc still doesn’t think he’ll come out of it anytime soon, if at all. I went to the hospital today and met with Rocky’s folks to tell them the outcome of the investigation. Nice people. I hate that part of my job. I’ll never get used to it.”

  There was more silence, more this time out of respect for Rocky and his family.

  “So who killed Miranda?” Greg finally asked, breaking the silence and not giving up on his train of thought.

  “No one killed Miranda,” Dev announced. “It was determined this afternoon that she committed suicide.”

  “How’s that?” I held my breath, waiting for the next slap of news.

  “The gun that fired the bullet that killed her was found in the van on the floor by her body,” Dev told us. “The gun was registered to Peter Tanaka. Martinez thinks Miranda took it from the van after giving him the poison.”

  “So her death is being considered a suicide too, like Rocky’s shooting?” asked Greg.

  “Looks that way.”

  “But how would she have been able to get into the lock box to get the gun?” Greg asked. “I doubt Tanaka gave her the key.”

  “Martinez said the box was found unlocked when they searched the van after Tanaka’s death. Martinez and his people think that somehow Miranda got ahold of the gun when she gave Tanaka the payoff or went back for it.”

  “But even if Miranda went back to grab the gun after Rocky confronted her, and somehow got into the vault,” I said, working through the theory as I talked, “wouldn’t she have also grabbed the money, at least her own?”

  “Were her fingerprints on the vault?” asked Greg, bombarding Dev with a question on the heels of mine.

  “No mention of her prints being on the vault,” Dev told us. “But they were on the gun. As for the money, if she intended to kill herself, she wouldn’t be worrying about money.”

  Greg and I were speechless to the point we almost forgot about Dev being on the phone.

  “You folks still there?” asked a voice from the phone in my hand.

  “Yeah, Dev. We are,” I told him. “We’re just having a difficult time processing all of it. There’s just too many pieces and loose ends to connect them cleanly.”

  “And no witnesses outside of Cory Seidman saying he heard Miranda and Tanaka arguing shortly before Tanaka died.” We could hear Dev take a drink of something.

  “The general consensus,” Dev said, continuing, “is that Miranda Henderson was a working girl, and Peter Tanaka found out and was blackmailing her. She gave him a payoff and took the opportunity to slip something into his drink. She might have taken the gun while the vault was open and he was otherwise occupied or went back later and somehow got it open. Who knows, maybe Tanaka left her alone for a minute to take a whiz, giving her an opportunity. Or maybe he left his van open for her to leave the money and slip away, but instead she poisoned him and took the gun. Could be Tanaka didn’t make sure the vault was locked tight before he went into the gym. The key to the vault was found among his stuff at the game.”

  “There seems to be a lot of loose ends, Dev,” Greg said.

  “I agree, but it’s not my case, and the bulk of it is fitting together enough to consider it a murder-suicide. As for Ann Tanaka, her prints weren’t found on the sport bottles or the jug or the vault. Believe me, after interviewing that family, Martinez had them on the short list of suspects, especially the sister.”

  “Because of the trust money she’s due to inherit?” I asked.

  Dev gave a soft chuckle. “I don’t know why you’re asking me questions you already know the answers to.”

  “Confirmation, Dev,” I said.

  “Well, you have it. The sister was looked into because of the money and because it came to light that Peter knocked her around from time to time, but she had an alibi for the timeframe and nothing to do with those water bottles.”

  “What?” This time the surprise came from Greg. “What about the mother—didn’t she stop the battering?”

  “More like covered it up for years. Started even before the accident that put him in the chair, though it does seem like it lessened as they got older. Martinez isn’t sure if it continued after they were adults or not, but if it did, there isn’t any evidence of it.”

  “Peter Tanaka was arrested for battering women in Canada,” I told Dev. “So it is something he continued, maybe just not with his sister.”

  “Now how in the hell do you know that?” Dev asked. “No, never mind—I don’t want to know. I know you have your special ways.”

  “It doesn’t takes take a rocket scientist to pull up criminal records on Westlaw,” I answered, not wanting him to know that Steele was helping with the research, although I’m sure he was thinking either Clark or Willie was helping. “I do work in a law firm, you know.”

  “Well,” continued Dev, “according to Martinez, neither the mother nor the sister would discuss it beyond saying Peter had anger management issues and was getting help.”

  “Ann’s comment about the trust is making sense now,” Greg said.

  “What comment?” asked Dev.

  I held the phone closer to me. “When we asked Ann who would get Peter’s share of the trust now that he’s dead, she said she would and that she had earned it.”

  “That’s really a screwed-up family,” Greg shot in the direction of the phone. “More than most.”

  “Yeah, that’s the sense I got from Martinez. I haven’t had the pleasure myself.”

  “We’re almost home,” I told Dev. “We appreciate the update, even if it isn’t good news.”

  “No problem. If I hear anything else I’ll let you know, but really you two can back off. It looks like this is all on Miranda, and there’s nothing you can do to change the facts.”

  When we got home it felt like the air had been let out of our tires, meaning mine and Greg’s, not the van’s. We were mentally and physically exhausted. We washed up and crawled into bed. Greg didn’t even read or watch the news. I forgot to brush my teeth. When I realized I hadn’t brushed them, I decided they wouldn’t fall out overnight and turned off the light.

  “Where do we go from here?” Greg asked in the darkness of our bedroom.

  “Is there anywhere else to go?”

  I felt him shrug under the covers. “How about we take tomorrow off from looking into this. Maybe some distance will help. We can go to the practice on Sunday. It might just be what Dev said—Miranda killed Peter and then herself. Just because we thought we knew her doesn’t mean we did.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right.” I turned to face him. “Maybe I won’t go into the office tomorrow. I’ll just spend the day here getting cau
ght up on some stuff.”

  “I thought Simon told you to take the rest of the week off.”

  “Not take it off, but take it to work on his project. Since I finished it so quickly, I really should look into my other work.”

  “Nah,” Greg told me after giving me a goodnight kiss. “I say give Simon a call tomorrow with your update and call it a day. Maybe check in with Steele, but that’s it.”

  Twenty

  I followed my hubby’s advice and took the day off. In the morning I took my usual walk with Wainwright to the beach and back. After Greg and Wainwright left for the office, I played with Muffin, getting in some rare one-on-one time with my furry baby girl. Then I picked up the house a bit, after which I placed the call to Simon Tobin on his private cell.

  “Simon, it’s me, Odelia Grey,” I said starting out the conversation as if he couldn’t read the display on his phone.

  “You must have had quite a chat with Ms. Fox yesterday,” he said instead of hello. His voice sounded pleased and surprised. “Did you threaten to have her killed if she didn’t disappear?”

  My heart nearly stopped. “Why?”

  “My mother said Eudora went to the ladies’ room, then returned to the table and excused herself, saying she didn’t feel well. When my mother called her last night, her phone number was no longer working.”

  “I found out that Eudora Fox and her company were fakes. She probably preys on other elderly people by bilking them out of their money.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Simon said. “It’s what I suspected.”

  “I confronted her when she went into the ladies’ room and told her to back off your mother or I’d turn her in.”

  “I wish you had turned her in,” he said. “Now she’ll move on to other unsuspecting people.”

  I had to think quickly to come up with an excuse why I didn’t call the authorities on Eudora Fox. Um, because I didn’t want to be found dead, shot execution-style. Would Simon believe that?

  Instead, I said, “I didn’t want to cause a fuss and embarrass your mother, Simon. Calling the police might have put her back into the public’s eye. I thought you wanted it handled discreetly.”