“I don’t!”
The agitation in her voice stirred up the cats, some of which shifted uneasily in their kennels. One lashed his tail as if egging her on.
“I think she called you that Sunday after Olivia was born and said you couldn’t have her, that she was keeping her. You and your husband argued with her. Then, when you couldn’t change her mind, you jumped in your car and drove to her apartment, maybe to try to convince her to give you the baby, maybe to take her by force. What went wrong? Did you push her, slap her? I’ve heard she could be irritating, and it must have pissed you off royally that she would lead you on about the baby and then decide to keep her. Did she fall and hit her head? I’m sure it was an accident, that you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“She wasn’t there,” Jacqueline said wearily, moving a spray bottle of Windex off a step stool and sinking onto it. “Stefan and I—after she called—we argued about it. He didn’t want to go see her; he preferred to take the legal route. He called Ziegler to get his advice about our ‘options.’ But taking her to court would take too long. I couldn’t wait. I’d already been waiting for so long. So I snuck out while he was watching golf and went to Lizzy’s apartment. You’re right . . . I’d been there before, just a few times. She didn’t really like it when I came, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know that she was still there, that the baby was doing well.”
“She sent you e-mails.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the same as feeling the baby kick against my hand.” Her eyes glowed with remembered excitement, and she put a hand against her abdomen.
“How long after the call until you showed up at Lizzy’s place?”
“About two and a half hours,” Jacqueline said, her face tortured. “If only I’d gotten there sooner, maybe I could have saved her.”
And gotten the baby, I thought, doubting she cared one iota about Elizabeth’s fate. I still wasn’t convinced she hadn’t seen Elizabeth. “Was there anything different about her apartment? Did you see signs of a disturbance?”
“I couldn’t see anything,” she said, echoes of her frustration straining her voice. “I knocked and knocked and tried to peer in the window, but the blinds were down. I even knocked on her neighbor’s door, thinking she might have seen Lizzy leave or something, but she wasn’t home either. Finally, I just gave up and went home. Stefan never even knew I’d been gone.”
The white cat meowed, a raspy, demanding sound, and she stuck a finger through the two-inch-square mesh to stroke his head. After submitting to the caress for a moment, he laid his ears against his skull and slashed at her finger with bared claws. She jerked her hand back.
“Not nice, Mo,” she admonished him. “That’s why we wear gloves,” she said, turning to me and waggling her fingers. “Not all the kitties appreciate the care we give them.”
“My witness says you were there again on Tuesday,” I lied, hoping to squeeze a few more drops of honesty out of her.
She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. They held nothing but deep weariness when she reopened them. “I went back every day, sometimes twice a day, until I read that Lizzy was dead. Then I gave up.”
No, then she went to the funeral and tried to pry information out of Patricia Sprouse. This was one very determined and resourceful woman. As I thought about what else to ask her, the door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold, holding a young boy by the hand and cradling an infant swaddled in several yards of white blanket in her other arm.
“Come pick out the kitty you want, Robbie,” she said to the boy. He dashed forward and pressed his face against the glass behind which the kittens tumbled. I smiled at his eagerness as he left little handprints on the glass I was pretty sure Jacqueline had just shined. I turned to her, expecting to see rueful amusement in her face, only to see her gaze clamped to the baby, the hunger in them approximating the look a vampire might give a pint of A-Pos.
Never underestimate the power of obsession. I slipped out of the room without saying good-bye, and she didn’t even notice my departure.
Getting back on 1-25, I made a quick call to Falstow Construction and learned that Stefan Falstow was on a job site, a high-rise office building going up on the south end of Castle Rock, a town midway between Colorado Springs and Denver.
“Do you mostly do commercial building?” I asked the helpful receptionist.
“About half commercial and half residential,” she said. “We’ve got a lovely new community of single-family homes and townhomes, Prairie View, going up east of Black Forest. I’d be happy to send you a brochure if you’re in the market for a new home. The models are just stunning and are open from nine to five thirty weekdays and Saturdays and noon to five on Sundays.” She reeled off the hours in a singsong voice brimming with good cheer. She probably moonlighted at Christmas as one of the elves coaxing nervous kiddies onto Santa’s lap at the mall.
I gave her the agency address and sped up 1-25, hoping the state troopers were busy elsewhere. Apparently they were, because I reached my exit without getting a ticket. I could see the high-rise from the interstate and wound my way to it. A large maroon, navy, and white sign announcing FALSTOW CONSTRUCTION told me I’d arrived. Construction sites have always reminded me of anthills, and this one was no exception. Workers in overalls and hard hats scurried around the base of the building and swarmed over its steel superstructure. If I narrowed my eyes and peered through my lashes, all I could see was yellow hard hats bobbing like the bits of food or grit ants carried. Shouts, clangs of metal on metal, and the chugging engines of large machinery made the site a lot noisier than an anthill. Locating the office in a trailer, I climbed the two portable steps.
A wave of damp-smelling air-conditioning from a window unit washed over me as I entered. Rubbing my suddenly goose-pimpled arms, I asked the man sitting at a desk where I could find Stefan Falstow. He pointed, and I turned to see the tall man with his neatly trimmed beard and a hard hat emerge from an office. The hard hat read STEF in precisely applied electrical tape. He wore a white button-down shirt tucked into gray slacks, but no tie or jacket. His face was tanned and lined by the sun; drooping lower lids below brown eyes gave him the aspect of a bassett hound.
His voice was brusque as he looked at me and said, “You were at the Sprouse woman’s house. Make it quick. I’m due to take a look at some plumbing.”
“I’ll walk with you,” I said, eager to extend our talk beyond the five seconds he was going to allocate if we stayed in the office.
He grunted something I took for assent and pointed to a row of hard hats slung on pegs beside the door. Interpreting the gesture as a command to put one on, I seized one and slapped it on my head as I followed him out the door. He was a couple of inches over six feet and moved rapidly over the rutted ground of the site. I trotted to keep up, trying to fasten the helmet as I moved.
“I’m Charlotte Swift,” I said, not bothering to try to shake hands since he was half a step ahead of me. “I’ve talked to your wife a couple of times about the baby you were hoping to adopt.”
“You’re the PI that’s trying to find her father,” he said, shooting a look over his shoulder. “Any luck? If you find him, I’ll pay him a healthy sum to allow us to continue with the adoption. Enough to send him to college. He’s probably just some teenager who wouldn’t know what the hell to do with a baby, anyway.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t contradict him, although I thought it was unlikely. “Mrs. Falstow told me you’re the one who handled all the legal details, the insurance and so on. Can you tell me how you got together with Elizabeth—Lizzy—in the first place?”
He lifted a hand in response to a “Hey, Stef” greeting from a man trundling a wheelbarrow into the building before answering me. “What did Jacqueline tell you?”
“She didn’t seem sure where you met,” I hedged, alerted by his too casual tone.
“I—we—met her through my lawyer,” Falstow said.
“Ziegler.”
“Right.�
� He ducked through a framed doorway, and I followed. Inside the building it was darker, colder, despite the lack of walls and the August sunshine turning the I-beams to shadow stripes on the ground. “Watch your step.”
He was always a step or two in front of me, keeping me from reading his face. Yet I got the sense he was evading my questions. “So, refresh my memory, did you suggest Lizzy to Ziegler, or is he the one that knew her first?”
“I don’t know many teenagers.” He ducked the question again. “Hey, Austadt, what the hell do you think you’re doing there?” He marched toward a worker doing something with metal pipes.
I cycled his evasions through my brain, virtually certain his reluctance to outright deny having known Elizabeth meant he’d run into her somewhere. I wondered again where he might know her from. I knew now it wasn’t from the high school, since Falstow was childless. Where did people meet? School, church, work, social events . . . I couldn’t see Jacqueline or Falstow fitting in with the believers at the Church of Jesus Christ the Righteous on Earth. Work—Lizzy wasn’t a welder or mason on a construction site; she sewed pillows and slipcovers and curtains for model homes. Bingo! The tumblers in my mind clicked into place. I’d’ve bet my last dollar that Designer Touches had the contract to decorate the Prairie View model homes.
Falstow tromped toward me, his face fixed in a scowl. I didn’t know if he was angry with me or the plumber he’d just chewed out. “Look, Ms. Smith—”
“Swift.”
“Sure. Sorry. I’ve got some things to deal with here today, and I don’t have time—”
“I understand. Just tell me: Are you happy with the work Lizzy did on your Prairie View model homes? I’ve heard they’re lovely.”
He was silent for a moment, one hand plucking at his beard.
“It wouldn’t take me two seconds to confirm that Designer Touches decorated those models and find out when they completed the job,” I prompted him.
A nailgun thudded above us as if counting the seconds. Ka-chunk . . . ka-chunk . . . ka-chunk . . .
Finally, Falstow gave in. “Okay, okay, I knew the girl and suggested her to Ziegler when he brought up the idea of a private adoption. I didn’t want Jacqueline to know because she’s insanely jealous and would’ve jumped to all sorts of hurtful conclusions.”
Probably the same ones running through my mind. “Was Lizzy pregnant when you met her?”
“Hell, yes! See, that’s what I mean!” He gave a disgusted shake of his head. “I was on the site one day last January when she came running out of the model we’d almost finished and puked in the yard—the toilets weren’t working yet. I thought she had food poisoning or something and wanted to call a doc. She said no, she was pregnant.”
“What made you think to ask her if she wanted to put her baby up for adoption?” I asked, skeptical that his encounter with Elizabeth had been as simple and brief as he portrayed it.
“Hell, she wasn’t much more than a baby herself. Despite the”—he cupped his hands in front of his chest to approximate breasts—“she couldn’t have been more than sixteen or so. I thought it was worth talking to her when Zieg explained how private adoptions work. She was happy to let us have the baby, seemed relieved to have someone to cover the medical expenses. I didn’t get the feeling she could rely on her folks.”
“Apparently she wasn’t as happy as you thought,” I said, “since she decided not to give up the baby.”
“Yeah, she turned out to be a real bitch.”
I raised my eyebrows, and his scowl deepened. “She broke my wife’s heart. And if you or she thinks I’m going to stand still for that . . .”
He talked as if Elizabeth were still alive. “So you raced over to her apartment after she called and—”
“The hell I did! I called my lawyer.”
I believed him on that. He seemed like the type who would have his lawyer on speed dial and would summon him if a worker got a paper cut (to forestall a workmen’s comp claim), if he was involved in a fender bender (to sue the pants off the guilty party), or had trouble collecting on a rebate promise from a big-box store (to send the message that no one cheats Stef Falstow).
“Okay. So the last time you saw Lizzy Jones was . . . ?”
He glanced at his watch and headed back toward the building entrance. I was glad to get out into the sun’s glare again, although I blinked several times in the brightness. “When we signed the contract in mid-March.”
“Your wife told me Lizzy came for dinner a couple of times and that she visited her at the apartment.”
“The baby was—is—Jacquie’s thing,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “If Lizzy was at the house for dinner, it was when I was away on business or out for the evening. I know Jacquie went to her apartment a couple of times, but I certainly didn’t.”
“You don’t sound too enthused about the baby,” I observed as we arrived back at the trailer. I pulled the hard hat from my head, running my fingers through my flattened hair to fluff it.
“There aren’t many guys my age who get excited about infants and the birthing process and all that,” he said defensively, “but once she’s out of diapers, I’ll teach her the right way to hammer a nail into a board, take her to Rockies games, and hope to God she likes tools more than she likes boys. So whoever has that baby ought to be on notice: I paid for her, and she’s mine.” With that, he stomped up the stairs and banged open the office door. It slammed shut on the rebound, so I left my hard hat on the edge of one step and headed for my car. I made notes about the interview with Falstow before starting the engine and driving back toward Colorado Springs.
Once on 1-25, I called the office to check in. Gigi answered with a cheery “Swift Investigations!”
“Any messages?”
“Oh, hi, Charlie. Yes, Melissa Lloyd called and wants you to meet her at Designer Touches as soon as possible. I was just going to buzz you.”
“Did she say what she wants?” I looked at my watch. I’d pass Monument on my way back from Castle Rock, so the detour wouldn’t be a big pain.
“No. Oh, and we got a call from a law firm downtown, one of the ones I called, and they have some process-serving work for us. I’m going down there in just a few minutes to pick up the paperwork. It goes to some guy in Fountain.”
“Great.” I made a mental note to keep an eye on the six o’clock news to see what Gigi had in her repertoire besides burning down fast food joints, busting meth labs, and scuttling golf carts. “Um, Gigi, will you be back at the office later?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Something came up last night I’d like to talk about.”
We agreed to meet late that afternoon and hung up.
I arrived at Designer Touches half an hour later to find Melissa engaged in conversation with a young couple looking at fabrics. She caught my eye and signaled she’d be with me soon. I drifted around the showroom, wishing I had enough spare change to buy a pair of pebbled glass and slate table lamps. With ecru shades, they gave off a homey glow that would be perfect in the living room when I finished renovating it. The price tag practically singed my fingers, however, and I decided I could make do with something from Target or Lowe’s.
“Ms. Swift. Charlie.”
Melissa Lloyd appeared at my elbow, looking ill at ease. Wearing a cream jersey dress and medium-heeled sandals, her hair scraped back in the usual French braid, she looked cool and professional. She waved good-bye to the young couple as they left, then turned back to me. “I asked you to come here because . . . well . . .”
“Is something wrong?” I asked as she trailed off. “Is Olivia okay?”
“She’s fine,” Melissa said. “What I wanted to say is that I don’t need you to keep looking for her father.”
My eyebrows arced toward my hairline. “You found him?”
“No. I just don’t—”
She turned away and click-clacked across the parquet floor to her desk. I followed. Plucking a piece of paper from her desk, she ha
nded it to me.
I studied the check. She’d made it out for more than she owed. “This is too much,” I said. The check would go a long way toward keeping Swift Investigations in the black for the month, but I felt let down. Once I took on a case, I liked to see it through to the end. I felt like I’d been benched late in the fourth quarter.
“I wanted to thank you for all the effort you put in. I—”
“Did you turn the baby over to CPS, is that it?”
“No!”
Her eyes slid away from mine to study the odds and ends on her desk. For the first time, I noticed a photo of Olivia in an elaborate wood frame. The penny dropped.
“You want to keep her.”
“Yes,” Melissa admitted. “I never planned . . . I never thought . . .” She laid her palms flat against her flushed cheeks. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
She didn’t really, but I didn’t disagree.
“C’mon.” She flipped the sign on the store’s door to CLOSED and led me to a small break room apparently shared with the store that abutted hers. It featured a table with four chairs, a sink, a microwave, a refrigerator, and a vending machine. “Pepsi, right?” She plunked quarters into the machine and handed me a cold soda, getting a 7-Up for herself.
“Thanks.” I took a long swallow and seated myself in one of the orange plastic chairs.
Melissa joined me. “I was abused as a child,” she said baldly. “My father beat me. You don’t need all the gory details. Suffice it to say I was put into the system when I was ten and bounced from foster home to foster home for a few years. Elizabeth’s father was one of my foster ‘dads.’ ”
Her emotionless statement rocked me back in my chair. “I had no idea—”
“Why would you?” She smiled, a wry twist of her lips. “I never thought I’d be a good parent. All the literature says kids who are abused are more likely to become abusers. Plus, I had no good role models, no one to teach me how a good parent does it.” She rolled the soda can between her palms. “So I was afraid to have children.”
Swift Justice: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) Page 21