Dragon Walk

by Melissa Bowersock

  Lacey nodded, jotting notes. Typical early level of abusive behavior, she agreed. “What else?”

  “Well, I told him he was not doing that in this store. He was not coming in here and disrupting customers and making a scene. That got me on his shit list in one quick minute.”

  “But he went along with it?” Lacey asked.

  “Sort of. He would still drive by, real slow, looking in the door, or he would park out back next to Maddie’s car and just sit there until she noticed and went out to talk to him. Freakin’ creep if you ask me.”

  “Did he ever hit her? I found no record of any police calls.”

  “Not that I was aware of. A couple times I noticed bruises on her arm, and when I asked her about it, she said she just bumped it on something. I knew she was lying.”

  Lacey studied Vanessa’s body posture. The woman seemed to have forgotten all about the lack of credibility associated with mediums, and leaned toward Lacey in earnestness.

  “Were you worried about her?” she asked.

  “Hell, yes,” Vanessa snorted. “I don’t know what it was about Maddie, but she’d pick the worst guys. I don’t know if it was a bad-boy attraction or what. Maybe, growing up in an quiet, affluent family, maybe it appealed to some weird sense of living on the edge. A therapist could have a field day with it, I’m sure. Brad was a Neanderthal, but Greg is a goddamn Nazi.”

  “And I’m guessing she’d defend him,” Lacey said.

  “Oh, sure. He was really sweet, I didn’t know him like she did, he just worried about her. Crap like that. Made me want to throw up.”

  Lacey had a thought. “So was he jealous? Worried about her seeing anyone else?”

  “Oh, Christ, yes. If she even looked at another guy, he was all over that. He could rant for hours.”

  Lacey checked back in her notes. “And yet, if I remember right, her friend Corey trained with her. How’d he feel about that?”

  Vanessa looked slightly uncomfortable. “He didn’t know. We all kept it from him.”

  “You all—you, Madison and Corey?”

  “Yeah. There were times Greg would want to go with her, so she’d call me—we had a signal—and I’d call Corey. Tell him to stay away.”

  Lacey had to wonder how Greg felt when he found out Corey was the last to see Madison alive—at least, as far as they knew. She made a note to herself to interview Greg next.

  She glanced up. Vanessa waited patiently, ready for the next question.

  “Now I have to ask about something else,” Lacey said. “Any problems here at the store? Any disagreements between you two about the business?”

  A flash of red infused Vanessa’s face. “You mean, did I kill her?”

  Lacey shrugged. “Gotta cover all the bases.”

  “No,” Vanessa said stonily.

  “Did you guys have any issues with the store at all, or was it a well-oiled machine? Did you split everything fifty-fifty? The work load, the expenses, the profits?”

  “We had the usual issues that go with owning a business: covering the hours if one of us was sick, finding reliable help to keep the place clean, stuff like that. But between the two of us, we had a contract. We put everything down in writing so there’d be no misunderstandings. We split everything except the large custom pieces we made. If I was contracted to do a full set—earrings, necklace, bracelets, rings—I’d get all the profit from that. Same for her. But the smaller stuff, the easy stuff we knocked out, we just split that. It was easier than trying to keep track of every little thing.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Lacey said. “And I’m assuming that you are now the sole owner of the shop?”

  “Yes.” Vanessa drew out the sibilant sound, daring Lacey to make an assumption about that.

  “Okay.” She made a note with no comment, then raised her eyes. “Can I get a copy of that contract?”

  Vanessa’s eyes flickered, as if she might challenge Lacey outright. But then she shrugged. “Sure. It’ll take me a minute to dig it out of the file, but I’ve got a copy machine in the back.”

  “Great.” Lacey closed her notebook. “I’ll just look around.”

  While Vanessa was busy in the back, Lacey browsed the displays. The jewelry was all very artful, with flowing designs in gold and silver. It was obvious the pieces were unique and handmade, not only for the lack of machined replication but for the hefty prices as well.

  When Vanessa brought out the copy of the contract, Lacey was drooling over an emerald ring.

  “Thanks,” she said, folding the papers and shoving them in her pack. “This ring is gorgeous.” She tapped the glass.

  “That’s one of Maddie’s,” Vanessa said. She unlocked the back of the display and took out the ring for Lacey to examine. The ring itself was a delicate scaled dragon, its body twined around the emerald, as if it guarded its treasure.

  Lacey checked the price. Twelve hundred bucks. “Ouch,” she said. “Too rich for a P.I.’s salary.”

  “Most of our clientele are pretty well off,” Vanessa said. She replaced the ring in the display case. “But we do have some less expensive pieces here.” She led Lacey to another case, this one holding more typical settings. Nothing as dramatic as the dragon, though.

  “These cases are beautiful, too,” Lacey said. “They’re works of art on their own. I love the wood.”

  “Yeah, they’re all handmade. They really set off the jewelry.”

  Lacey glanced around. “The store is very nice. So the name, Dragon’s Den—Madison’s idea?”

  “Yes,” Vanessa said. “She loves dragons, and since the place was so long and narrow, and had no windows because we’re sandwiched in between two other businesses, it fit. At first I thought it was kind of dismal, but we’ve made a name out of it. It works.”

  Lacey nodded, then put out her hand. “Thank you, Vanessa. I appreciate you talking to me.”

  The woman looked a trifle suspicious, but did shake hands. “You think you’ll find her?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ll find her. We’re already on the trail.”

  Vanessa grinned, all suspicion gone. “Good. Get the son of a bitch.”

  ~~~

  EIGHT

  At home again, Lacey fixed herself a quick dinner of cottage cheese and some canned pears. Cooking for Sam for almost a month had put a few pounds on her that she definitely wanted to lose. It was nice to be able to fix whatever she wanted, and to do it two-handed.

  She rolled her shoulder as she settled into a chair at the dining room table. She’d done too much—again; the arm was aching. She’d take some Tylenol after dinner. First she wanted to call Captain Shaw. It was already five-thirty.

  “Captain Shaw.” He answered on the first ring.

  “Captain, it’s Lacey,” she said. “You’re working late.”

  “As usual,” he said. “What have you got for me?”

  She described the visit with the McClures and her and Sam’s decision to check out the hiking trail.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “Sam identified the place where the killer took her off the trail.”

  “Hang on,” he said. She could hear paper rustling. Was he getting a map? “Go. Where is it?”

  “We believe we were about a mile from the parking area. We marked the spot with a dead branch and some rocks. I’m going to send you some pics. Just a minute.”

  Lacey grabbed a few of the most descriptive shots and sent them to him via text.

  “You get ‘em?”

  “Got ‘em,” he said. “Okay, I see the branch and the rocks. But no GPS coordinates?”

  “No. I’ll have to get an app.”

  “Okay. And from there?”

  “Well, that’s the hard part, sir. Sam said they went east from there.”

  “East? To where?”

  “Uh, he couldn’t tell that, sir.”

  Shaw groaned. “Do you know how much wilderness is out there?”

  “Sure do. But what we’re wondering is how much your
men have already searched. You may have already narrowed it down some.”

  “Hmm.” She could hear him rustling more paper. “I’ll have to gather that information. Don’t have it here in front of me. That’s near Bronson Caves, isn’t it?”

  Bells went off for Lacey. “Caves?”

  “Yeah. You know those caves they used for the Batcave and other movies? They’re just southeast of that.”

  Lacey had not remembered that. Now she scrambled to open up her own map and see how close Bronson Caves were to their place on the trail. More south than east. Was that the direction Sam was sensing? She’d have to find out.

  “I doubt we’ll find anything there,” Shaw was saying. “Those caves are very popular and tons of people go there. They’re even on some of those ‘homes of the stars’ maps people sell in Hollywood. If there was a body there, it would have been found a long time ago.”

  But none of those people had Sam, she thought.

  “Okay, what else you got?” Shaw asked. “Anything more?”

  “Sam says it was definitely a man, and she knew him.”

  “She did, huh? This was no stranger?”

  “No, sir. She knew him, and she was not afraid of him, either. Sam felt no fear, no panic there on the trail.”

  “So that probably means she wasn’t killed there,” Shaw surmised. “He convinced her to go with him someplace else. Okay, what else?”

  “I talked with Vanessa Medina this afternoon at the jewelry shop. She thinks Greg did it.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Lacey flipped pages in her notebook. “She said he was borderline abusive. Highly jealous, always checking up on Madison and Vanessa said Madison showed up sometimes with bruises on her arms.”

  “Hmm. And we had nothing on him at all,” Shaw said. “Had plenty on the other guy, but not this one.”

  “I know,” Lacey said. “Vanessa thinks Greg was smart enough to hide it, smart enough to not let it go too far. At least not until…”

  “Yeah. Until then.” The captain was silent for a moment, probably jotting notes, Lacey thought. She waited.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. That’s it for today. I think I’m going to call Brad and Greg next, see what I can get from them. You’ll be searching the park, right?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “I doubt we’ll get a concerted effort going before Monday morning, but I’ll start the ball rolling.” He paused again. “This is good stuff, Lacey. You and Sam are doing good work.”

  “Thanks, sir.” Lacey grinned.

  “Keep it up.”

  “Oh, we will, sir. You can bet on that.”

  ~~~

  Lacey finished her dinner—such as it was—and perused information about Bronson Caves online. They weren’t really caves in the proper sense, but more deep gouges in the canyon walls, remnants of quarry work from the early 1900s. Only one cave was of appreciable depth, and it was actually a tunnel that went clear through the mountain. The rest were mere hollows, although large ones.

  Didn’t sound promising, Lacey thought, but still they ought to check them out.

  Pushing aside her empty plate, she called Sam.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey, yourself. Got a new place for us to take a look at.”

  “Oh? Where?”

  Lacey gave him the particulars. “I don’t honestly think we’ll find anything there, but with Madison’s attraction to caves, I think we should check it out.”

  “We can do that,” Sam said. “When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow?” Lacey asked.

  “I pick the kids up at noon. Want to go before or after?”

  Lacey considered that. She’d love to see the kids, but when she thought about trying to explain why she wasn’t living with Sam anymore…

  “Uh, before,” she said hesitantly.

  “Coward.”

  She flinched at the word, and Sam’s tone, but couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, about this I am. I just… Kenzie’s so sweet and so loving. I wouldn’t know how to…”

  “It’s okay, Lacey.” His tone was softer, more sympathetic. “I got this. The kids have been through changes before. They’ll adjust.”

  Lacey swallowed down the tightness in her throat. “I know. I just don’t want to disappoint them.”

  Sam was quiet for a moment. “How about me?” he asked.

  Lacey stared up at the ceiling, willing herself not to cry. They both knew the answer to that. She already had.

  “Sam…” What could she say?

  He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about it, Lacey. It’ll all work out. Pick me up at nine?”

  She struggled to pull herself together. “Sure,” she said.

  “Okay. See you then.”

  “Bye, Sam.” But he was already gone.

  ~~~

  She gave herself a break before starting her phone calls. She hopped in the shower and washed the sweat and grime from her body and hair, and treated herself to a bowl of ice cream. Then, cool, calm and refreshed, she called Brad first.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Brad Foley?”

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Lacey Fitzpatrick. I’m a private investigator hired to look into the disappearance of Madison McClure. I—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you people, it wasn’t me? I was long gone, out of the picture, hadn’t even seen Maddie in months. Can’t you get that through your thick head?”

  Lacey reeled briefly from the surly attack. “Yes, I understand that, Mr. Foley, but—”

  “But what? What don’t you understand?”

  Lacey pulled in a steadying breath. “I understand you have an alibi, as well?”

  “You know damn good and well I do. I was working. Twenty guys saw me that morning.”

  “All co-workers?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Including my boss. You want to understand that, call him. Al Baxter, of Baxter Builders.” He rattled off a phone number. “He’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you. Leave me the fuck alone.”

  The line went dead, although Lacey felt a distinct ringing in her ear. She pulled the phone away and stared at it.

  “Are you absolutely sure about that, Mr. Foley?” She shook her head. Whew. She hadn’t encountered an offensive defense like that in a long time. He certainly sounded sincere. Pissed but sincere.

  She called Al Baxter. He was only slightly more cordial.

  “How many times we gonna go through this?” he asked testily. “Yes, he was at work. Yes, an entire crew of men saw him there. I saw him. He was acting normal, talking normal. Not nervous, not hyped up, not unusual in any way. You got the wrong guy, lady. Give it a rest, all right? Find the right guy and quit bothering innocent people.”

  And the line went dead. Again.

  All righty, then, she thought. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been hung up on twice in one day. Twice in ten minutes.

  By the sound of it, the LAPD had beaten that particular dead horse to a pulp. She drummed her fingers on the table, thinking. If the PD had found any crack in that wall, they would have pursued it. It must have all checked out. She’d ask Captain Shaw to be sure, but she was guessing he had a list of men interviewed at Baxter Builders, and they all said the same thing. Either it was true, or Foley had a hell of a bank account to pay off that many guys.

  Yeah, probably not.

  Well, if any of her research pointed her back in that direction, she could revisit it. Right now, it looked like a dead end.

  She hoped the trail that led to Greg Lamb would be more productive. And a little less combative. She dialed his number.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Greg Lamb?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My name is Lacey Fitzpatrick…” She gave him her introductory spiel. He listened without comment until she got to the part about interviewing him.

  “What for?” His tone was defensive and antagonistic at the same time.


  Lacey pulled in a breath. “You know the investigation is ongoing,” she said carefully. “I’m hoping you might be able to fill in some gaps in the chain of events.” Then she turned on him. “Is that a problem?”

  Her question, asked so nicely yet with a hard edge, seemed to surprise him.

  “I didn’t do it,” he ground out.

  “Then I’m sure you’d be willing to help us find out who did,” she said without skipping a beat.

  He was silent, although Lacey could hear a TV or something in the background.

  “When?”

  “How about tomorrow afternoon? Maybe two o’clock? There’s a coffee shop in Los Feliz, the Buzzword. We could meet there.”

  “Okay,” he said. It was a grudging agreement at best.

  “Great. See you then.” She didn’t give him time to rethink it.

  ~~~

  NINE

  Saturday morning, Lacey pulled up in front of Sam’s apartment, nervous again. She made a project of checking to make sure she had her phone, two water bottles, sunscreen, her Dodger’s hat—everything she’d checked before she left home. By the time she’d gone through her supplies, Sam was letting himself into the car.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Good morning. I was just making sure I had everything. I don’t think this will take too long, but you never know.”

  They drove in silence. Now that Lacey knew the way, she didn’t need Sam’s directions.

  “Same place?” he asked as she headed up Canyon Drive.

  “Nearly. We went right past the trail yesterday. Neither one of us were looking for it, so we must have just looked right past it.”

  She parked in a gravel parking area and pointed down the road. “See that red curb? That’s the trail.”

  “Looks like a driveway,” he said as they exited the car.

  “I think it turns to dirt later.” She handed him a water bottle and settled her cap on her head. “Let’s go.”

  The trail did indeed look like a driveway. They had walked only a short distance when both the pavement and the red curb disappeared, leaving only the dirt trail.