So much for my cover. “Is she doing okay?”
“She’s dying,” Patricia said flatly. “She was too ill to travel down for the funeral. I’m going to drive up to Denver this week, have lunch with her. I want to see her one more time before . . . I don’t care what Zachary says. She was—is—my best friend.” Her eyes stabbed defiantly at me, as if I were the husband who had detached her from the friendship.
“Why did you call me, Mrs. Sprouse?”
“Come in.” She led the way across the yard, away from the scratching chickens, to the back door of the small brick house. Inside the kitchen with its white appliances it was cooler. “Would you like some iced tea?”
“Sure.” I settled into one of four wooden chairs around a Formica-topped table.
A gust of cold air filtered across the room as she opened the fridge to retrieve a pitcher of tea. I wondered if Elizabeth had sewn the pleated curtains veiling the window over the sink with a cheerful pattern of farmyard animals on a pale blue background. They looked freshly laundered; the whole kitchen was sparkling clean, despite such signs of age as a gouge in the porcelain sink and linoleum curling back from where it met the cabinets.
“Thanks,” I said as Patricia handed me a glass and sat across from me. It wasn’t Pepsi, but it was cold and caffeinated, and I realized I was thirsty. I took two long swallows as Patricia gathered her thoughts.
“Aurora told me you were looking for Elizabeth on behalf of a client. Who is your client?”
“I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Sprouse.” I could tell by her quiet acceptance of my answer that she hadn’t expected me to divulge the name.
“Is it Elizabeth’s birth mother? Elizabeth started searching for her not long after I married Zachary and we moved down here from Denver. Did she find her, make contact? Is that who has the baby?” She sat in her chair, as if anticipating a blow, and I knew it must hurt her unbearably to think her daughter, the girl she’d raised from infancy, had entrusted her own baby to another woman. Worse, to the woman who had given her up.
“Who is the baby’s father?” I countered.
“I don’t know,” Patricia said. “When she told me she was pregnant, she wouldn’t say anything about who the boy was, not even when Zachary took the strap to her to make her tell us the truth.”
“He whipped a pregnant teenager?” And you let him? I left the second question unsaid.
“Zachary believes in strong discipline to rebuke the sinful,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “It’s God’s way. Look at how he punished David and Bathsheba for their sin—he killed their child. And Jonah, and Lot’s wife.” She reached desperately for examples I was sure her husband had paraded in front of her and Elizabeth time and again.
“I heard that your husband had arranged a marriage for her. Could that man have fathered the baby?”
She stared at me in dismay. “How did you know— No, Elizabeth was resistant to that betrothal, much to Seth’s disappointment. I’m sure they hadn’t . . . that he didn’t . . .”
“What’s Seth’s full name?”
“Johnson. Seth Johnson. He’s a godly man, a pillar of the church, one of our elders.”
“How old is he?”
“Maybe forty-three. The poor man’s been a widower for three years now.” She twisted the plain gold band of her wedding ring.
Call me cynical, but when a man in his forties tries to marry a sixteen-year-old, I know just what “pillar” is driving him.
“What happened after your husband beat Elizabeth?”
“She left the next day,” Patricia said, despair darkening her eyes. “I never spoke to her again.”
I let the unutterable sadness of that lie between us for a moment.
“So why are you interested in finding the baby?”
“She’s all I have left of Elizabeth,” Patricia said. “I owe it to her. I want to do better this time.”
“You don’t get do-overs with raising children,” I said. Not if you dump them with relatives so you can travel the world saving sinners, not if you run off to Costa Rica with your personal trainer, not if you marry perverts who molest them. I drained my glass and set it on the table, leaning forward to catch Patricia’s eyes. “When you say you owe it to ‘her,’ do you mean Elizabeth or Olivia? Because, frankly, even though I’m not really with the DHS, I’m not sure this house is the best place for Olivia. Look what happened to Elizabeth.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes. “Zachary—” She stopped.
“Zachary what? Would he be willing to submit to a DNA test to check paternity?”
It took her a full thirty seconds to grasp my meaning, and when she did, bright circles of red stained her cheeks. She used both hands to fan herself. “He would never . . . Zachary didn’t . . . you have a filthy mind!”
I probably did, the result of too much time as an OSI agent and too many cases like this one. In fact, it was a molestation case that had finally driven me out of the Air Force. Didn’t mean Zachary hadn’t raped his stepdaughter. “The simplest way for your husband to prove his innocence would be to offer to donate a DNA sample, Mrs. Sprouse,” I said more mildly. “I’m sure DHS would look more favorably on your request for custody, too, if he were to do that.” I had no idea if that was true or not, or even if DHS would be involved in deciding who got custody, but it sounded good.
“Can I just see the baby?” she pleaded. “Does she look like Elizabeth?”
Hell if I knew. I hadn’t studied her that closely. I was sure Patricia would see a resemblance to her daughter, however. I felt sorry for this woman, mourning her daughter, maybe blaming herself for marrying the man who beat her or worse, yearning to see her granddaughter. Yet I couldn’t imagine how she could stand by and let her husband drive her daughter away.
“I’ve been hired to find the baby’s father—nothing more,” I said, rising from the table. “I can’t tell you who my client is, but I’ll pass along your desire to see the baby.”
“Thank you,” Patricia said, clearly used to making do with half a loaf.
“How did the Falstows expect you to contact them?” I asked.
Patricia looked confused by the change of subject, then pulled a business card out of her pocket. It read RUSSELL ZIEGLER, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW and offered several phone numbers. I wrote them all down.
Conscious of passing time and of the possibility of Pastor Zach returning with all his Old Testament bombast, I crossed to the door. Patricia Sprouse remained seated, her head in her hands, the picture of defeat.
“Look,” I said, pity for her overriding my usual policy of noninvolvement, “I’ve got a lawyer friend who specializes in custody cases. Maybe if you gave her a call she could help you.”
She looked up, a shadow of hope in her eyes, and I recited Valerie’s number. Patricia repeated it several times, committing it to memory, and I wondered if she was afraid of Pastor Zach’s reaction if he found the number written somewhere.
“God’s peace be with you,” she said as the screen door banged shut behind me.
Back at you, I thought. If there was a God and he had extra peace to pass around, these people needed it more than I did.
I drove home pondering my progress on the case. As far as I could tell, I had one strong candidate for Olivia’s father, Zachary Sprouse, and one maybe, Stefan Falstow. I’d only gotten a quick look at him, but something about him—the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his work-hardened hands?—said “virile” with a capital V, and the way he said “our” when talking about the baby made me wonder if he meant “mine.” I reined in my speculations. Where could Elizabeth have met a man like Falstow? Maybe he had a teenager at Liberty. I resolved to check. A third possibility for baby Olivia’s daddy was Elizabeth’s wannabe fiancé, Seth Johnson, with some high school boyfriend I didn’t yet know about sliding into fourth. I hoped tomorrow’s interview with Linnea Fenn would give me more info on that front. I considered calling Montgomery to see if he had
any leads on the girl’s death—keeping in mind that whoever killed her might not have fathered the baby—but decided to let it go until tomorrow. With no leads I could pursue on a Sunday afternoon, I headed for home and a regrouting job in the shower I’d been putting off for weeks.
(Monday)
The sight of Gigi polishing Bernie’s plastic nose with a damp cloth greeted me when I arrived at the office Monday morning. Her lime green blouse and tiered skirt clashed with the pink cast on her arm. When she turned to greet me with a cheery “Good morning,” I saw she wore a strand of fat beads and button earrings that matched the cast. Even her shoes were the same Pepto-Bismol pink. I could just see the headlines in Vogue: CASTS ARE THIS SEASON’S MUST-HAVE ACCESSORY. I shut my eyes and made my way blindly across the room to my desk, reaching for a Pepsi like a drunk with a hangover.
“How’s the arm?” I asked, for the first time feeling grateful she was my “partner” and not an employee—at least she couldn’t file a workmen’s comp claim.
“Not too bad,” she said, settling into her chair. Considering she’d been sideswiped by a motorcycle, she looked pretty good, her hair styled as usual and makeup mostly concealing a small bruise on her forehead. “Although I don’t know if I’ll be able to do any fieldwork for a while.”
Thank God.
“What are you going to do today?” Gigi asked.
“Talk to a girl who was a friend of Elizabeth’s and see what I can get from the lawyer representing the Falstows.” I hadn’t been able to find an address for them online, only a Web site for Falstow Construction, and would have to rely on my Department of Motor Vehicles contact to supply me with one. On the thought, I dialed his cell phone number. He hated it when I called him on his work phone, convinced the DMV recorded its workers’ conversations. Maybe they did. “Curtis, I need—”
“Don’t use names!” His reedy whisper sounded more frantic than usual. “Wait a minute.”
The sounds of people talking in the background, computer keys clicking, and a fan whirring reached my ears as I waited for him to return. It got quieter, and I realized he must have walked out of the office. The sound of a flushing toilet told me where he’d gone.
“Did you know people can intercept cell phone conversations with equipment they buy at Radio Shack?” he hissed. “Not just the National Security Agency or something, but regular people? I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Yeah, well, those people are more interested in getting credit card numbers than listening in on your conversations with your mother, Curtis,” I said, amused by his paranoia.
“You can laugh,” he said. “It’s not your job on the line. I’m having to raise my price.”
That ended my amusement. “Curtis—”
“No names!”
“Mr. Deep Throat, you already charge a hundred bucks for something that takes you two seconds.” I wondered if he was really as paranoid as he made out or if he just wanted justification to hold up his clients—I was sure half the PIs in Colorado Springs had his number on speed dial—for more money.
“Yeah, well, the risks have gone up, so my price has gone up. A hundred and twenty-five. Take it or leave it.”
I fumed, envisioning the middle-aged man with his argyle sweater vest and comb-over. “Fine. The name is Jacqueline Falstow.” I spelled the last name for him and added the license plate number. “I need the info today.”
“I’ll e-mail it to you. I’ve set up an anonymous account, so don’t think it’s spam or a virus or something when you get an e-mail from CaptainAmerica6771. That’s 1776 backwards,” he explained.
“Very patriotic,” I said drily.
“Hey, buddy, you gonna be all day? You’re not the only one’s gotta take a crap, you know.”
I hung up as Curtis responded to the bathroom heckler.
“Who was that?” Gigi asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.
I explained, adding, “Prices are going up all over. It’s getting hard for an honest PI to make a buck.”
“You bribe government officials?” Gigi sounded simultaneously amazed and disapproving. “Shouldn’t you report them? I mean, we’re taxpayers.”
“Contacts are important for a PI,” I said, impatient with her naïveté. “We don’t have the official resources that the police or the feds do. Bribes are just part of the cost of doing business, only you have to be creative with how you deduct them because it’s not like you get a receipt.”
“I still think honesty is—”
“How did your daughter do Saturday?” I asked. I wasn’t actually interested in the spoiled blonde’s performance, but I was tired of the ethics lecture.
Her face relaxed into a glowing smile. “She qualified for regionals, in October. I just know Kendall’s going to earn a berth on the Worlds team this year.”
I was sure every mother at the competition thought the same about her own sequin-spangled little Dorothy Hamill. “Super,” I said mechanically as my computer signaled I had an e-mail. Curtis had come through with Jacqueline and Stefan Falstow’s address and phone number. Something about the number rang a bell. Where had I seen it before? I flipped through my notebook, scanning all the notes I’d taken on this case. There it was: the number I’d gotten when I dialed *69 on the phone in Elizabeth’s apartment. I rocked back in my chair and grabbed another Pepsi. The Falstows had just surged into the number one spot on my interview list, edging Seth Johnson by a nose. As I was MapQuesting directions to their house, the phone rang again, and Jack Van Hoose told me Linnea Fenn had agreed to talk to me over lunch.
“We’ve got an open campus, so there’s no problem with her leaving. She says she’ll meet you at the Pikes Perk at eleven thirty.” His deep voice sounded just as good over the phone.
“Thanks, Jack. I owe you a dinner.”
“Friday night?”
“You’re on.”
I hung up, smiling slightly, and Gigi asked, “Was that another bribe?”
“No, that’s a date.”
I was almost positive there was a difference between the two.
Gigi, focused on her computer screen, barely waved as I walked out. I had the directions to the Falstows’ and would cruise by there after meeting Linnea. I paused at the door. “Do you want me to bring you back some lunch?” I asked, surprising myself. “It must be hard to drive with that cast.”
She looked up and smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Charlie, but Albertine has invited me down to try her gumbo. She wants to sign my cast.” She waved her pink-plastered arm in the air.
“Fine.” So she and Albertine were going to be best buds now? Fine, just fine. I stalked to the Subaru and pulled the door closed with unnecessary force.
Linnea was waiting at a corner table of the small coffeehouse three blocks south of Liberty High School when I walked in. A bored barista behind the counter was texting someone, thumbs tapping rapidly; other than that, Linnea and I were the only ones in the place. The hoops through her eyebrow had disappeared, but her left ear now sported at least eight earrings, including a purple skull that dangled almost to her shoulder. A nose stud glinted from one nostril, and her clothes looked like the same ones she’d had on when I met her in the cafeteria: black jeans, black T-shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves, and black-painted fingernails. In my pin-striped blouse and navy slacks, I knew she must think I was as uncool as her parents. I could be this girl’s mother, I realized with a jolt, pulling out the chair that faced hers. Shit, I was getting old.
“Hi, Linnea. Thanks for meeting me.”
“Yeah, well, Mr. Van Hoose said if you could find the baby’s father, maybe it would be better off. When he said that she might have to live with Beth’s parents if you couldn’t find him, well, I thought I should try to help because anything would be better than that.” She took a swallow from the stainless steel mug in front of her, and aromas of chocolate and cinnamon wafted out.
I started out with a softball. “Did you know Elizabeth found her birth mother?�
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Her eyes widened, making her look younger and less sophisticated. “Really? No way! I knew she was looking, but I thought she’d given it up. She didn’t tell me . . .” A hurt look flashed across her face before she hardened it to blasé again. “Recently?”
I didn’t want to intensify her hurt. “I’m not sure when. Had she been trying to find her for a while?”
“God, yes. She was obsessed when we first met in eighth grade, after her mom married the church guy. I asked her once if she thought her birth mom was going to ask her to live with her or something—I mean, I didn’t really think that was likely, and I didn’t want Beth to be disappointed—but she just laughed and said she didn’t want to meet her ‘biological maternal unit’—that’s what she always called her—for that.”
“Why did she want to find her, then?”
Linnea shrugged.
Conscious of Linnea’s lunch half hour ticking away, I moved on to what I really needed. “Did Elizabeth have a boyfriend?”
Linnea shook her head, setting the skinny ponytails bobbing in all directions. “Not really. Not a real boyfriend.” She hesitated, her eyes slipping from mine to study the napkin holder on the table. “I mean, it’s not like she was a virgin, although I’m sure her parents thought she was.”
She said “virgin” as if it were synonymous with “total loser” or “scummy creepizoid.” Despite that, I got the feeling she was one. There was just something innocent about her, despite the black eyeliner, stony face, and wardrobe from Vampires “R” Us.
“They’d kill her if they knew. There were a couple of guys last year . . . well . . . I really think she hooked up just to get the attention, you know? With her dad dying and her stepdad being a jerk, I think she just wanted to make some guy love her. I tried to tell her that sex wasn’t love and that these guys were just using her.”
I was in favor of giving this girl her own call-in radio psychology show. She knew more about relationships than half the men I’d dated.
Swift Justice: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) Page 11