by Judy Alter
“Kelly, describe this man to me again, carefully, slowly, every detail.”
I launched into young, maybe twenty, blond hair, probably not natural, slight build, well dressed, not quite sure of himself. Brown eyes. What else could I think of? I stopped, stymied. No accent but good grammar. Probably good manners. Not a slum kid.
Mike interrupted me. “Kelly, I want you to look at some mug shots with me. You want to meet me at the office?”
I nodded. “Just give me a minute to call Keisha.”
“I’ll wait.”
I wanted to grit my teeth and say, “You can go on. I’ll be perfectly fine by myself.” But I kept quiet.
He went inside to talk to the officer who was collecting evidence. I had mentioned that the young man had leaned against the sink, perhaps put his hands on the counter, so I suppose they were dusting that for prints too.
Keisha just muttered, “Darn. We’re in the thick of it again, Kelly. What have you done this time?”
“Nothing,” I said indignantly. “I’ll see you later.”
Mike and I finally ended up, separately, at the district police headquarters, where he showed me into his office and left saying he’d be back shortly after he collected the mug shots. It took him forever, and I later found out he was compiling a collection of shots of similar looking men. Trying to trick me, I thought.
When he finally came back, he reported that the Lexus had been stolen and was found abandoned on the far west side of Fort Worth. Not a lot of help, but I somehow felt vindicated.
“Now, Kelly,” he said, “study each one of these pictures closely. If any look at all like the man this morning, tell me and I’ll pull that one out. Then we go again through the ones you’ve marked.” He talked as though I were a not-quite-bright child.
I dutifully studied pictures—a couple sort of looked familiar and I pointed to them. Mike put them aside, and I kept going, until I saw the picture of the man I knew as Charles Sanford. In the picture he had long brown hair, but it was definitely him. Anyone could bleach and cut their hair. “That’s him,” I said. “No question about it. I don’t need to look at any more. I’m sure.” There was no name on the picture, just a number. Not that I’d expected it to say Charles Sanford.
Mike had the strangest look on his face that I’d ever seen. “You’re absolutely sure?”
I nodded.
“Kelly,” he reached for my hand, “that’s the kid who beat his girlfriend the night the guest apartment burned. I thought your description sounded like him, but I wanted to make sure. You don’t have any doubt?”
“No. But I don’t get it—if he was beating his girlfriend, he didn’t burn our guesthouse. What’s the connection? I don’t see any way the two fit together, and yet they must somehow.”‘
Mike ran a distracted hand over his burr haircut. “I don’t know. I can’t figure it out either, but I will.”
“Mike, that night, he surely didn’t use the name Charles Sanford, did he?” Nobody, I thought, would be that dumb.
A look of disgust crossed Mike’s face. “Of course not, Kelly. I’d have caught on right away. His name is Greg Davis.”
Made sense to me that Charles Sanford was a fake ID, but it was the name he would forever be branded with in my mind. “Did you verify it?”
“The usual things—driver’s license, insurance papers, social security card. No, I didn’t ask for his birth certificate.” Disgust had turned into sarcasm now. “We’ll be going back to visit him. Kelly, let me do my job.”
I bit my lip and avoided looking at him, which he evidently thought was license to continue his lecture.
“I want you to take Keisha with you on any showings from now on.”
We’d been through this before, and it hadn’t worked very well. I didn’t need or want a chaperone, caretaker, whatever you’d call her. “Mike, I showed this morning I can defend myself, and I’m the one with a license to carry, not Keisha.”
“She’s working on it,” he said, and I knew they’d been in collusion. “She’ll have a license pretty quick.”
I was a bit put off to be out of the loop—they were, I knew, conspiring to look after me, as though I weren’t quite capable myself. Pregnancy, I wanted to shout, does not addle the brain! Instead, calmly as I could, I asked, “Where was the car stolen?”
“River Crest area,” he said.
“Where Jo Ellen’s father lived. The man who just left me a generous bequest.”
“No logical connection, Kelly. This wasn’t from his property—which by the way isn’t sold because the estate hasn’t been ‘satisfactorily’ settled. We checked. But the car came from the other side of the golf course.”
“Still,” I persisted, “someone familiar with the area.”
“Yeah, and an area where foolish people feel safe leaving their keys in their car. That’s what happened. It was stolen sometime last night, out of the owners’ unlocked garage.”
“There’s some connection,” I said, “something we have to figure out.”
“Kelly,” his tone was as patient as he could make it, “some connection the police have to figure out. There’s no part of you in the ‘we’.”
“Am I free to go?” I asked frostily.
He rose and came toward me. “Of course. And sweetheart, don’t be mad at me. I’m doing my best to solve a crime and urge you to keep yourself safe. Go have lunch with Keisha and tell her to hurry with that license.”
I still left feeling like a kid who’d been scolded instead of a woman who’d done a good job of protecting herself and contributing clues to a possible crime…or a crime to be committed…or I didn’t know what.
I marched into my office and announced, “Lunch downtown. My treat. Order filet if you want it.”
As Keisha gathered her bag and slipped on her outrageous high heels, she said, “My, my. Are we in a snit?”
“We are,” I said firmly.
We had lunch at a new spot where you could overlook the plaza and fountains of Sundance Square. I really longed for a glass of wine as I poured out the story of my morning to Keisha, but I settled for iced tea—knowing I shouldn’t even have much of that. “How,” I asked, “can this young man be connected to anything else? On the other hand, how can it be coincidence that he’s the one who beat his girlfriend?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Keisha said, “but it sure says something about his character. I don’t believe I’d like to have him walking behind me on a dark street. And nobody much scares me.”
“You’re twice his size,” I said and almost giggled.
“But not as sneaky.” She stared off in space a moment and then turned to me, her eyes lit with discovery. “Maybe he beat the girl so she’d call 911 and he’d have an alibi when the fire ignited. He could have put grease on the stove on a low flame much earlier.”
That was why I liked having Keisha around. One of the reasons.
In spite of a good lunch—Keisha did indeed have a filet, while I settled for a chopped chicken salad—we were no closer to figuring out the puzzle than we had been before. And I was still looking over my shoulder, staring at people on the street, expecting to see Charles Sanford.
****
Back at the office, there was a phone message from the woman whose voice I almost but not quite recognized. Once again her voice sounded distorted. She was terse and to the point. “Charles regrets the misunderstanding. He’d like to set up another appointment.”
Not on your life…or mine! I scribbled down the number from caller ID It was a cell phone, and I promptly called Mike with the number. It turned out to be a throwaway cell, which really discouraged me. Charles or whatever his name was didn’t really want to reschedule; his boss lady was just letting me know they were not giving up or being scared away that easily.
I know a bit about the psychology of stalking: rattle the victim so you throw them off base and they make stupid mistakes. One way to do that is the pattern I’d noticed emerging this ti
me—a major event followed by minor things. I was prepared for some minor annoyances in the coming weeks.
Life actually went on fairly peacefully for just about two weeks. Maggie remained generally sullen with occasional bright moods that I tried doubly hard to appreciate when they came. She still spent a lot of time in her room with the door closed. Once I asked Em what Maggie was doing, and she said, “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk to me anymore.” So I wasn’t the only one. Maggie was happiest when she played chess with Mike—and beat him. I asked one night if he let her win, and he swore he didn’t.
“She a really bright kid. So’s Em. Good thing they take after their mother and not their biological father.” Then he preened a bit. “‘Course I might have had some input as they’ve been growing up.”
I didn’t know whether to kick him or hug him. Chose the latter.
My baby bump was beginning to show, morning sickness was behind me, and I was feeling well, if still sleepy. I slept ten hours some nights and still wanted more, and my clothes were getting uncomfortably tight. When Maggie noticed that, she commented,
“Pretty soon the whole world will know our family secret,” she said.
“Secret? I didn’t know it was a secret. I’m telling people, now that I’m at three months and feel a little safer.”
“Why three months?”
So I explained that the danger of miscarriage was great in the first trimester, especially in a woman my age.
She nodded and asked, “You’re not going to wear those tight dresses and shirts that cling to your belly, are you?” The implication in her voice was clear.
“No, but I’m going to get some maternity jeans. Wish I’d kept the ones I had when you girls were born.”
No comment. She just walked away.
The most troublesome incident with Maggie came one Saturday when she said, a bit too casually, “Oh, Chris is coming over.”
“Do I know her?” I asked.
Maggie grinned. “Not her. He’s a him. He’s a sophomore.”
Okay, the moment I’d been awaiting, dreading, wanting to put off until she was thirty. Busying myself straightening the living room, which really didn’t need it, I asked, “What’s he coming over for?”
“Just to hang out. He’s cool. I like him a lot.” She sat on the couch, tossing a basketball from one hand to the other. “We’ll probably shoot some baskets.”
At least she apparently didn’t intend to take him to her bedroom and close the door, in which cases I would have had to take dramatic action. Why did Mike go get a haircut when I needed him? Still, it was chilly outside, but maybe shooting baskets would work off some of their heat—take that any way you want. “Shall I invite him to lunch?”
She was aghast. “No, Mom. He’d think you were a dork.”
I wasn’t sure a dork was the last thing I wanted to be in this case.
“Just keep Em away,” Maggie said, and I nodded. Harsh of Maggie, but it only seemed fair.
Chris arrived sometime after ten in the morning. He was, I admit, a bit of a shock. He looked like Charles Sanford/Greg Davis until I convinced myself it was just the longish blond hair with the shock that hung over one eye. He tossed his head frequently to put it back in place. But he had an earring! Granted, just a stud, and just in one ear—but it was an earring. Maggie didn’t even have earrings, for Pete’s sake.
Maggie’s manners were good. “Mom, this is Chris Martin.”
His manners were equally good as he held out his hand and said, “Pleased to meetcha.”
It was all I could do to keep from replying, “Martin? Uh, has your family lived in Fort Worth for generations?” Maybe he was Robert Martin’s grandson. Stop it, Kelly. Jo Ellen is an only child and she’s childless. Besides she wouldn’t send a fifteen-year-old boy after me…or would she?
I managed to reply that I was glad to meet him too.
“We’re going out back,” Maggie said.
“Okay. Come in when you need a drink.”
And they were out the door. Em came through the house and headed for the back door, I put a gentle hand on her shoulder, “Come help me bake cookies.”
“Nope. I want to go watch Maggie and her boyfriend.”
“That’s exactly what you’re not going to do. And he’s just a friend, not a boyfriend.”
She sighed. “He has an earring, you know.”
I busied myself with gathering ingredients for the peanut butter cookies I hadn’t intended to make.
When Mike came home, he breezed through the kitchen and said, “I think I’ll go out back and see if I can outshoot Maggie’s friend.” He went, slamming the door behind him.
Em gave me a dark look.
****
Claire wanted to host Thanksgiving, but I said I wanted to because Christmas might be too much. We had lunch one day to plan details. Mike and Claire would each roast a turkey, unless Mike wanted to smoke one and roast one fresh. I had nixed his suggestion of frying one. Too dangerous with such a crowd, and I wasn’t sure I would like the finished product. We would assign side dishes to everyone.
Claire reported that Megan was going with Brandon to his family’s ranch outside Stamford, so that cut our number by two. And Sheila and Don were taking little Lorna to his parents’ home in Lamesa. Thanksgiving was looking more manageable.
And then there was Keisha’s wedding. Perhaps it would have been proper to call it José and Keisha’s wedding, but so far José was a passive participant. After much thought, Keisha chose a Sunday—Peter assured her he would open the restaurant just for her party and would cater his menu to her taste as much as possible. Although it was only mid-November, Keisha and I had several planning sessions at the Grill—where would the altar be? She had a family minister she wanted to perform the ceremony—no, I don’t mean someone who has ministered to her family. I meant a distant cousin who was a minister, though of what variety she didn’t say. I thought of the Reverend Dr. Bruce Hollister and shivered a bit.
My girls would be her only attendants, and they would wear bright colors—a strong pink for Em and turquoise for Maggie (who would object, I suspected). Mike would be José’s best man, to which he had readily agreed, and would walk Keisha down the aisle. No mention was made of giving her away.
Keisha studied and studied the menu at the Grill. Beer and wine for everyone was no problem, but she wanted a seated dinner since there would be maybe forty guests at the most. I hadn’t done a head count, but I knew the list had grown. Something light, since it would be warm weather, but not fish—not everyone ate that.
One afternoon in the office, she pounded her desk and said loudly, “That’s it!”
Raising my head from some papers, I saw her grinning. “What’s it?”
“Hot dogs. Mona will bring that street vendor cart she has and serve hot dogs at the wedding.”
I was hesitant to say the least. “Peter may not want you bringing food into his restaurant. And it may even be against the law.”
“I’ll check, but that’s what I want. Peter can provide all the sides and drinks and the wedding cakes—one for me and one for José.”
Hot dogs would certainly be economical—and in this case fitting, since we’d helped Mona set up her business—but still she was talking money. “Keisha, have you and José been saving for this day?”
She gave me one of her rolling-eyes looks. “I been savin’ for this day since I was ten. Child, I can pay for this wedding and three months’ rent on that house.”
Silenced, I decided to let her present this idea to Peter without me. Meantime, she hadn’t set a date.
Anthony was still working on rebuilding the guesthouse so our property buzzed with subcontractors all day every day—electricians, plumbers, a tile man, and finally painters. I was uncomfortable with strangers on the property and mentioned it to Anthony—who knew if they were Charles Sanford’s uncle or neighbor and he’d sent them? Anthony assured me they were all men he would vouch for. At the office, things we
re going okay but not great—or maybe between pregnancy and the stalker, I had no heart for it. I had some new listings, a few people looking, and enough to keep us comfortably busy without making me feel crowded, cross, and grumpy.
But all the while, two things worried me. Benjamin Cruze of Bachman and Bannister called one day to say that there had been a delay in getting the will through probate court. An anonymous representative of Robert Martin’s family was contesting the bequest to me. No, he couldn’t tell me who that was. He or she would disclose the name only to the probate judge. Benjamin promised to keep me apprised of future developments. I thanked him, reassured him I wasn’t waiting anxiously for the money, and hung up. But I sat with my hand on the phone, thinking, for a long time. Maybe the stalking wasn’t about revenge. Maybe it was about money. And if that was the case, all signs pointed to Jo Ellen North. But how could she manage that from prison?
Mike was discouraged beyond words about the search for Greg Davis/Charles Sanford. “He’s simply disappeared from the face of the earth,” he said. “No one at the apartment where he lived, no sign of Sandra Balcomb who supposedly lived there. Apartment was empty except for a lot of trash he left behind and some cheap furniture.”
“But you have photo ID,” I protested.
“Yeah, but Greg Davis had long brown hair. Charles Sanford had fairly short bleached hair. Who knows what he looks like now? If he’s holed up somewhere, then someone is bringing him food and supplies. We have an APB out on him. And we’ve done all the looking we know to do. Pestered the poor Balcombs to death.”
“Who are they?”
“Parents of the girlfriend. They said Sandra came to see them, said everything was fine…but that was the same day as he tried to attack you. They haven’t heard from her since.”
“Didn’t that worry them?”
“Nope. Apparently they’re used to not hearing from her for days at a time, and then she appears all full of sunshine and family love. I don’t understand it at all.”
“So she wasn’t at the apartment either?”
“Nope, no sign of her, except some cosmetics left behind, I guess they left in a hurry…after he attacked you. But where did they go?”