“Cup the bottom of your right hand with your left. Like this.” She demonstrated, and the gun, a small .22 that looked like a Halloween prop in Gigi’s hands, took on a silky air of menace.
“Oh, Charlie,” Gigi said, catching sight of me in the doorway. “This is Frieda Vasher. She’s showing me how to hold my gun.”
Bending, Frieda tucked the gun into an ankle holster before turning to greet me. “Swift,” she said, shaking my hand with a grip that would mash aluminum cans, “I’ve heard a lot about you. The way you tracked down the Olson kid . . . whew!” She shook her head. “That story in the Denver Post about it was great advertising, I’ll bet.”
“I got some business from it,” I admitted. The lines in Vasher’s face suggested she was in her late forties or early fifties, but she was as fit as a twenty-year-old. She wore no makeup, but a tattoo that looked like a Celtic bracelet girdled one rock-hard bicep. Her eyes were a light gray, almost silver, under strong black brows. She studied me for a moment, and I got the feeling she saw more than most people.
“Let me tell you what I know about the Sprouse girl,” she said, pulling forward the straight-backed chair and straddling it backward.
I propped my shoulders against the wall and nodded: I was listening. Gigi rolled her chair around the desk and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands, her expression suggesting she had front-row seats to a Broadway premiere.
“She contacted me a year ago May—”
“How’d she get your name?”
“My Web page,” Vasher said with a grin that showed one front tooth slightly overlapping the other. “I notice you don’t have one. You might want to think about designing one; I get better than half my business off the Internet these days. Anyway, she came to see me and said she wanted to find her birth mother. She was obsessed.” Her brows drew together. “She’d been saving money for years to afford a PI, squirreling away every dime of her allowance and the money she made sewing. Can you imagine?”
Gigi nodded. “That poor girl. How awful not to know who your mama is.”
Frieda gave her an approving look. “Exactly. It didn’t take me long to track down her mother’s maiden name—she had the correct date of birth and the name of the hospital—but it took longer to find the marriage certificate and her current location. She got married in Syracuse,” she said, “where her husband’s from.”
“How did she react when you gave her the information?” I asked.
Frieda hesitated. “I’ve done a lot of work like this, finding the birth parents of adopted children, or vice versa. In almost all cases, the person searching is full of hope, and maybe a little fear that the truth—or the parent or the child—won’t be what they’ve dreamed about for years. Still, they’re hopeful, excited, and they’ve planned out the reunion in their minds a hundred times. First I’ll say this, then he’ll say that . . . you know?”
Gigi and I both nodded. I’d played that mental game waiting for my parents to come home from Kigali or Montevideo or wherever, hoping that this time they’d hug me like they’d never let go, tell me how much they missed me, say they were never going to leave me with Grandy and Gramps again. It never worked out that way until after Grandy died and they started dumping me with Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis instead. “But Elizabeth didn’t react like that?”
Frieda’s emphatic headshake set her short hair swaying. “No. She just said, ‘Now we’ll see,’ with a funny little smile, paid me, and left. I guess,” she said, her eyes settled on the middle distance as she thought, “she was missing the hope. It bothered me a little. I even felt a little bad about giving her the info.”
“Did you see her again? Did she call, like after she made contact with her mother?” I asked.
“Nope. Never heard from her again. It all came back, though, when I checked the bulletin board and saw your query. And then the obit.” She heaved a sigh, pushing the chair away to stand. “She was too young to die.”
She shook hands with me again, refused payment for her time, and handed me her card, telling me she did bodyguard work, in addition to investigations. I promised to call her if I ever needed her expertise, and she left. Not on a Harley as I might have guessed from her attire, but in a cream Nissan Sentra.
“Now, she looked like a private eye,” Gigi said admiringly. “Tough.”
“And what am I?” I headed for the fridge and my Pepsi fix.
“A businesswoman,” Gigi said.
I was tough, damn it. I felt a twinge of irritation at her assessment, and it must’ve shown on my face.
“That’s good,” she assured me. “I’ve been reading some PI magazines”—she opened her bottom desk drawer and fanned a handful of magazines on the desk—“and they all mention how important it is to be professional and businesslike. Maybe Frieda’s right about a Web page, though. I’ll bet we could really increase our bottom line if we had a good one.”
We? My ears started to itch, deep inside where I couldn’t scratch, the way they do when I get angry. If there weren’t a “we” in this office, my bottom line would be just fine.
“Actually,” I said, “a good way to increase our cash flow would be to do some process serving. A lot of PIs do it to have a steady income stream.” I’d always steered away from it, preferring real investigations to handing unsuspecting women divorce paperwork or upstanding citizens notice that they were being sued. However, needs must when the devil drives, as Grandy used to say, and process serving was less distasteful than photographing adulterers. Best of all, a cast wouldn’t pose much of an impediment to process serving.
“What’s that?” Gigi asked.
“You know, tracking down people and handing them court paperwork, saying, ‘You’ve been served.’”
“I wouldn’t know how to track anyone down,” Gigi said dubiously.
“Mostly you just get the address off the paperwork and ring the doorbell,” I said. “Occasionally, you might have to wi— be a bit more creative.” I bit off the words “wing it” as Bernie glowered at me from the corner.
Before she could protest further, I called my lawyer friend Valerie and got us set up to deliver a summons for her the next day. Then I handed Gigi the Yellow Pages and suggested she call every lawyer listed to pitch them on our ability as process servers. She looked appalled but gamely started dialing. This would be perfect: Not only would it bring some money into the agency, but it would be such tedious work—driving around town, waiting for people to come home—that Gigi would run, not walk, back to her Broadmoor mansion and dial up a new lawyer who could pry more money out of the larcenous Les the Lecher.
A tan pickup blocked my driveway when I arrived home, and I wondered if it was a lost St. Paul’s parishioner, looking for Father Dan. Parking on the street, I approached the truck, prepared to direct the driver to the rectory next door. The door swung open, and Pastor Zach stepped out, his face contorted with fury. The late afternoon breeze had no effect on his Brylcreemed comb-over, but his blue tie was askew and his short-sleeved shirt crumpled. I wondered how long he’d been waiting for me.
“What gives you the right?” he yelled, stomping toward me.
I held my ground, refusing to give way on my own property, as he came to within an arm’s length. He exhaled stale beer breath into my face along with his anger. “You don’t have the right to cozy up to my wife and drip your poison into her ear!”
Ah, Patricia must’ve told him about my visit. I doubted she’d told him that she’d initiated our conversation. “Look, Mr. Sprouse—”
“No, you look.” He wagged a trembling finger half an inch from my nose. “You have poisoned my house and my marriage with your evil insinuations. I would not defile myself by any congress with that harlot. I would not! I am a man of God, and I do not consort with evildoers.” His Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively.
“Really? How do you ‘save’ them if you refuse to consort with them?” I knew my flippancy would stoke his fires, but I couldn’t help myself. H
is self-righteous blather pushed all my buttons. At least my parents hadn’t held themselves above the people they hoped to convert.
“You may scoff, you whore, but I will not tolerate your libel—”
“I think you mean slander.”
“—or your turning my wife against me.” Before I could read his intention, his arm flashed up and he slapped me across the face.
My head whipped to the side. Damn, that stung. The pent-up anger that had been simmering inside me since I found Gigi sitting in my office surged to the forefront. My eyes narrowed as I turned to face him, his face glowing with triumph.
“That’s assault,” I told him, my voice flat and cold. “Your wife and daughter may let you get away with it, but I will prosecute.”
My words didn’t faze him. He was tripping on the power, and his eyes burned with lust for more. He stepped toward me again—just as I wanted him to—his hands balling into fists.
“You want a crack at the other one?” I asked, turning my face to show him my unmarred cheek. Even as he shifted his shoulders, putting all his weight into a blow aimed at my face, I ducked under his arm and plowed my fist into his midsection, right below his sternum, just like the Air Force taught me. His breath woofed out and he tried to grab me, but I danced away.
“And that’s self-defense,” I instructed him, hoping he’d come at me again.
“You will be punished, just like that other whore was punished,” he gasped. He straightened up, attempting to reclaim his dignity. “You cannot escape the consequences of your sins. Fire and brimstone rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah, and your fate will be even worse.”
“Worse than Elizabeth’s? Why’d you kill her, Zach?”
“She deserved her fate, but I had nothing to do with it. The wages of sin—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re repeating yourself.” My muscles relaxed as it became clear he wasn’t coming after me again, and the breeze chilled my flushed skin. I caught the scent of beef charring on a mesquite grill.
The light of madness drained out of his eyes, and he was suddenly an ordinary-looking middle-aged man, maybe a little scrawnier than most, his shoulders slumped with the weight of a wife mourning her daughter, unpaid bills, and dreams of evangelical fame unlikely to come to fruition.
“You stay away from my wife,” he said more quietly, squeezing his face with his fingers and pulling the flesh down. “She’s a grieving woman, and you are doing nothing but adding to her pain, just like that daughter of hers did with her disrespectful mouth and her whorish ways. It was a blessing when she left our house, but my Patricia didn’t see it that way.”
I didn’t imagine many mothers would.
“You leave her in peace.” He trudged back to the truck and fired it up, reversing so quickly I had to jump out of the way. As it was, bits of gravel peppered my legs. His brake lights flashed at the corner of Tudor Road, and then he was gone.
My muscles trembling slightly as the adrenaline leached away, I pulled my Subaru forward into the spot vacated by Sprouse. Then I trudged into the house and splashed water on my face to relieve the sting in my cheek. That side of my face was puffy and red, and I lightly patted it dry with a towel. A soft dusk was settling as I changed into a pair of shorts and the yellow T-shirt that brings out the gold flecks in my brown eyes, scuffed into a pair of sandals, grabbed a six-pack of beer, and followed the scent of barbecuing beef to Father Dan’s patio. I was too damn worn out to cook for myself.
Dan sat in an Adirondack chair, reading a book by porch light. I breathed in the aromatic smoke wafting from the grill as I came up the walkway. Dan looked up at the sound of my sandals slapping on the cement. Concern clouded his eyes, and he closed the book.
“I’ve come for dinner,” I said, lifting up the beer, my contribution to the meal.
“Should I ask what the other guy looks like?” Dan stood and moved toward me. He gently touched his forefinger to the tender spot on my cheek. He wore a Hawaiian shirt with yellow hibiscuses—hibisci?—on a turquoise background and shorts that showed off his muscular legs. His feet were bare. Suddenly way too conscious of his scent—soap and an aftershave with a hint of lime—I stepped away, resisting the impulse to lean my face into his large palm.
“His bruises won’t show,” I assured him, appropriating his second chair. I pulled a bottle of cold beer from the six-pack and held it against my cheek. “Aah.” I took a swallow.
After another moment of scrutiny, Dan apparently decided I was going to live and helped himself to a beer. Using the tongs dangling from the grill, he poked at the meat. “Who hit you, Charlie?” he asked, replacing the tongs and turning to face me.
“A man of God,” I intoned.
His face remained impassive, his gaze steady. When I didn’t amplify, he asked, “The one fond of quoting Revelation?”
“One and the same.” I raised my beer in a salute and drained half the bottle. I hadn’t realized how much the stress of this case and of having Gigi around was piling up.
“Did you file a report with the police?”
I gave him a sheepish look from under my lashes. “I told him I was going to,” I said, “but when it came down to it, I felt kind of sorry for the guy. I don’t know why. He came off like he was really trying to protect his wife.”
“Charlie—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “If he lifts a finger against me again, if he even looks at me funny, I’ll file charges. Okay?”
“No, not okay.” A thread of anger ran through Dan’s voice. “Abusers and bullies count on their victims’ silence. That’s how—”
“I know the stats. Anyway, I’m not a victim. I gave as good as I got. I’m not here for pastoral counseling.” I glared at him. Discovering my bottle was empty, I set it down with a hard clink on the patio.
“What are you here for?” Curiosity and something else colored his voice, and I found it hard to meet his intense gaze.
“Dinner.”
“I’ll set another place.”
As he turned away, I noticed the two place settings on the glass-topped patio table. “Are you expecting someone?” I jumped to my feet, almost knocking over my beer bottle. “A date?”
“Just a friend,” Dan said. “You’re welcome to stay.”
“A he-friend or a she-friend?”
“A woman.”
“Oh, my God, I’m crashing your date.”
“You don’t have to—”
The sound of a car pulling up in front galvanized me. Grabbing another bottle from the six-pack, I swung my legs over the low stone wall surrounding his patio. “Keep the beer. Have fun. See you around.”
I tossed the words over my shoulder as I navigated the uneven terrain between our yards, blundering into a low shrub in the dusk. It scratched my legs, and I cursed. The low murmur of voices followed me as I climbed the stairs to my deck. Damn. I couldn’t even soak in my hot tub since I didn’t want to eavesdrop, even accidentally, on Dan’s date. Feeling aggrieved, I yanked open the door and stomped into my kitchen. Still unmotivated to cook, I ate tuna from a can and munched an apple from the fridge. I went over my notes from the Lloyd case until my eyes started to blur, then went to bed, pretty sure I hadn’t heard Dan’s visitor drive away yet.
11
(Tuesday)
Seth Johnson, Elizabeth’s wannabe fiancé, owned a ranch—a large one—east of Colorado Springs on the Big Sandy River near a small town called Wild Horse. I’d called ahead when I woke up and been told he could spare me fifteen minutes that morning. Giving Gigi a call at the office to let her know where I’d be—and gritting my teeth at the necessity—I headed east on Woodmen Road into a blinding sunrise and a sky so clear I could see to the far side of Kansas. I happened to notice that no strange cars cluttered Dan’s driveway as I drove past.
I’d done a quick Internet search and made a couple of calls about Johnson before setting out and unearthed some interesting details. He was from a well-off ranching family in eastern Colorado and, t
hrough innovative breeding practices and good management, had turned the respectable family fortune into a large one. He’d picked up a master’s in agriculture science at Colorado State University and interned in a lab in Pennsylvania doing genetic engineering before returning to Colorado to run the ranch when his father died. He’d gotten married for the first time at the age of thirty. His bride was only eighteen, I’d noted with interest, and they’d divorced three years later. No children. His second wife, also eighteen when they married, died in a hiking accident five years into the marriage. Also no children. His third wife, twenty to his forty, lasted less than two years before going the way of wife number one. Still no little Seths. Elizabeth would have been his fourth wife. In addition to marrying frequently, he made large contributions to political campaigns but, aside from one disastrous run for the state senate, he remained a behind-the-scenes power broker.
An hour of driving through increasingly flat vistas brought me to the entrance to Johnson’s spread. Ten minutes later, I arrived at the house and a grouping of barns, silos, sheds, and other ranch buildings I couldn’t identify. Three or four pickups and a Lincoln Town Car were parked outside a building with a neatly lettered sign reading OFFICE. I pulled up alongside the other vehicles and got out to the smells of dust, hay, and a whiff of cow dung. A stiff breeze stirred my hair and sent the dust spiraling in little eddies. Anxious to escape the wind, I pulled open the door and found myself in a room with an empty desk, a watercooler in one corner, a wall of photos of prizewinning bulls on my right, and a door leading to an inner office from which came male voices.
About to knock on that door, I started as a voice came from my left. “Help you?”
I whirled to see a middle-aged woman, her face stiff with suspicion, emerge from a small bathroom I hadn’t noticed earlier. Dressed in a denim skirt and a Western shirt with a yoke and snaps instead of buttons, she dried her hands on a paper towel and sat behind the desk, obviously more comfortable with its bulk between us. Squirting lotion from a bottle into her hands, she massaged them together, her pale blue eyes looking a question at me.
Swift Justice: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) Page 14