The Woman Who Wasn't There

by Marie Ferrarella

  Troy gave his partner the high-five sign. “Such as?”

  The lawyer paused. “He wants a transfer to Folsom,” he said, citing the more progressive prison. “He misses working out.”

  Just what the world needed, Troy thought. A stronger convict. But if it gave them what they wanted, that was how they were going to have to play it.

  “Depends on what he has to give us.” Troy’s tone indicated that there would be no problem with the transfer.

  “Understood.”

  “We’ll be there within the hour.” Troy ended the conversation just as Kara approached him. “We’re hitting the road again.”

  Kara sighed, making a U-turn to retrieve the all-weather coat she’d just shed. “Mother warned me there’d be days like this.”

  They were back in the small room, facing Sheffield forty-five minutes later. The man’s cocky attitude was replaced by one of compliance, due, Troy judged, in no small part to the conservatively dressed, silver-haired man at his elbow. Sheffield’s lawyer.

  His unmanacled hands folded before him as if he were a schoolboy sitting before the principal, Sheffield surrendered his bargaining chip. “I sold the gun.”

  “You sold it,” Troy repeated, not quite certain if he believed the convict or if he was being set up for something. He glanced toward the lawyer, who wore an impassive expression. Troy decided he wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with the older man. His eyes were unreadable. Just like his sister Janelle’s were when she was in a game.

  “Yeah, just before I got arrested,” Sheffield said. Then, because he had nothing to lose and because he wanted to seem honest, he added, “Figured it was hot.”

  Troy’s eyes never left Sheffield’s face. The convict was easier to read than his lawyer. “Most people would have thrown it in the lake.”

  Sheffield looked contemptuous of the suggestion. “Hey, it set me back three bills. I wasn’t going to just throw that away.”

  Troy glanced at the lawyer’s face. The man was shaking his head, obviously incredulous at what he’d just heard. Troy suppressed a grin. The workings of the criminal mind never ceased to amaze him. “Okay, who’d you sell it to?”

  Sheffield lifted his wide shoulders in a dismissive shrug. “My dealer.”

  Bells went off in his head. Troy exchanged glances with Kara. “Your dealer’s name wouldn’t happen to have been Clyde Petrie, would it?”

  Sheffield’s dark eyebrows drew together, knotting over the bridge of his hook nose like an oversize black caterpillar. He stared at Troy, clearly mystified. “Yeah, how d’you know that?”

  “Because that’s the man whose homicide we’re investigating,” Kara said, clearly disgusted.

  Sheffield laughed. The sound had a particularly nasty ring to it. It was obvious that he hadn’t liked the other man. “How about that?”

  “Yeah, how about that?” Troy echoed.

  “I get my transfer?” Sheffield asked.

  Troy’s eyes scanned the inmate’s less-than-buff physique. If Sheffield worked out, then he was the middleweight champion of the world.

  “I’ll put the paperwork through myself,” Troy promised. He looked at Kara. “Time to hit the road again.”

  Rather than answer, Kara sneezed as she crossed to the door.

  He held it open for her. “Looks like that cold you’ve been nursing is finally getting the better of you.” Outside, the wind was howling. Winter was fighting a knock-down, drag-out fight before giving up its claim on the land. The sky was a gloomy gray. There was going to be more rain on the way. “I’ll drop you off at the precinct. Go home, Kara.”

  She was too tired to argue. Getting into the car, she buckled up. “Where are you going?”

  “To pay someone a visit.”

  Rather than ask who, Kara merely nodded at the information, a sure sign, in his estimation, that she was ill.

  ***

  An hour later, with Kara on her way home, Troy went to see the late dealer’s probation officer. He had questions and maybe she had answers.

  She might be a gorgeous woman, he thought as he drove down Aurora’s main street to where the county offices were located, but she wasn’t exactly at the top of her game when it came to making sure the people assigned to her were clean.

  Otherwise, what was Clyde Petrie doing with a gun? A gun that had been turned on him and used to snuff out his life.

  He wasn’t willing to fully explore the fact that he wanted an excuse, any excuse, to see the probation officer again. She had lingered on his mind like a low, soft melody, the kind whose lyrics insisted on eluding him, but that remained skipping along the perimeter of his thoughts, playing over and over again.

  He shook his head. It wasn’t as if he was at a loss for female companionship. Since the age of four, he’d enjoyed being around women. They were soft, comforting creatures, each with her own special beauty. He loved them in all shapes and sizes. He loved women and they loved him. And there were no games. Ever. The ground rules were set from the beginning. Enjoyment. Mutual pleasure, nothing less and nothing more. Even though all of his cousins and now even his brothers had decided to pair off, the going-forth-and-being-fruitful route had never been for him. He liked his life, liked his independence. Liked that surge, that excitement of being with someone new.

  He saw no reason to give that up. He’d never met a woman who even made him momentarily consider giving it up. But he had to admit that this one was piquing his curiosity.

  “Look what the wind just blew in.” Jorge uttered the words to Delene as he passed her desk.

  She didn’t comment. She was too involved with the young woman sitting at her desk, the one whose case had been assigned to her this morning. Rosa Alvarez was hardly more than a girl, really. A girl convicted of prostitution.

  Due to some fancy pleading on the part of her court-appointed lawyer, Rosa been placed on probation instead of going to the county jail. The way Delene saw it, Rosa was at a crossroads. She could turn her life around. Or go under. The choice was Rosa’s.

  Helping the girl was something Delene was bound to do. It was personal. Because there but for the grace of God, Delene thought the moment she looked at the case, went she. Her life could have very easily taken the same wrong turns that Rosa’s had. It was obvious to her that the still fresh-faced girl needed someone in her corner. She was going to be that someone.

  “Call me.” Delene took a white card out of her top desk drawer, wrote her cell phone number across the back, then pressed the card into Rosa’s small hand. “Night or day,” Delene emphasized. “You need a friend to talk to, call me.”

  Rosa combed her straight, long dark hair away from her face with her fingers and looked at her with huge eyes. She pressed her lips together, as if she didn’t trust her voice for a moment. Instead, Rosa nodded. She tucked the card into the small purse she was clutching.

  She had the face of an angel, Delene thought. And wearing the clothes that her attorney had gotten from a secondhand shop in order to make her look more respectable to the judge, she looked like a schoolgirl. Anyone looking at her would have never thought that she was guilty of the crime that had brought her to stand before the judge in the first place. It was both Rosa’s appeal, as well as her downfall.

  Pushing her chair back, Rosa rose to her feet. “Okay.”

  She ducked out past Troy, her head down as she avoided making eye contact. In reality, it was a moot point. Troy was too busy looking at Delene.

  Belatedly, Delene replayed Jorge’s words in her head and looked over her shoulder. Troy’s eyes seemed to bore right into hers. A warm shiver danced right between her shoulder blades. He was the last person she expected to see here.

  “You always give a hundred and fifty percent of yourself to each of your charges?” he asked her as he sat down.

  He made himself right at home, didn’t he? she thought, trying not to notice that the air around her seemed several degrees warmer than a moment ago. “I do my best.”

 
Was she really as altruistic as that? Or was it just an act, something he wasn’t seeing? “Then what’s left over for you?”

  She raised her chin defensively. What was he doing here, watching her?

  “A feeling of satisfaction.” She went on the offensive. “What are you doing here, Detective Cavanaugh? I’m sure you didn’t come by to check the status of my emotional reserve.”

  He would have been by eventually, he admitted to himself now that he was face-to-face with her. Even if work had not sent him here, his curiosity would have. Because although his investigation was finally making some headway, albeit in baby steps, his investigation of one Delene D’Angelo had not progressed at all.

  Wanting to find out about her, he’d discovered that there was nothing on her beyond her work record for the past five years and her college transcript. He couldn’t even find any record of where she’d lived while she was going to college. The less he found, the more curious he became.

  Troy sat back in the chair, allowing himself a moment to appraise her. She had a heart-shaped face and long, dark lashes that were in contrast to her almost platinum hair. He wondered if she was one of those rare creatures, a natural blonde. If her shade came from a bottle, it had been skillfully applied. He caught himself wondering what she would have looked like with longer hair. Her features seemed too fine for the blunt haircut she sported.

  “Seems the bullet that came from the gun that killed Clyde was owned by Clyde.” He moved forward on the chair until his face was only a matter of inches away from hers. “Since when does the probation department look the other way when it comes to their charges owning guns?”

  Tiny flares went up, fueling the uneasiness that was slipping over her. He was too close. Much too close. But to pull back would have highlighted her discomfort. So she willed herself to stay where she was and tried not to dwell on his nearness. Or her reaction.

  “We don’t,” she said coolly. “Are you accusing me of something, Detective?”

  Looking at her, he could see her being compassionate. He couldn’t see her being sloppy. But how else could they explain Clyde’s owning a gun? “Just how thorough are these so-called ‘raids’ you conduct?”

  “Very.” The assurance came not from Delene but from Jorge. The man was leaning over the top of the cubicle, glaring at Troy. “When we show up at a place, and by place, I mean where they live, where they work, anywhere we feel they might be hiding something, we toss it. They don’t get to stash so much as a pinch of cocaine.” The big man began to step forward around the cubicle.

  Delene held up her hand. She appreciated the thought that motivated Jorge, but she wanted it clear that she could take care of herself. “It’s okay, Jorge. I can handle this.”

  Her colleague looked rather unconvinced, but after a moment he grudgingly retreated to his cubicle. He sent one last malevolent glare Troy’s way before he sank down in his seat and out of view.

  Troy turned back around to face her. “You’ve got yourself one hell of a guardian angel there.”

  She studied him a second to see if he was poking fun at the other man, then decided that he wasn’t. And, after all, Jorge couldn’t exactly be described using the word small.

  “You throw mud on one of us, some of it splatters on the rest,” she replied philosophically. “Jorge doesn’t like mud.”

  Troy’s mouth curved. “Or me, from the looks of it.”

  No, he probably didn’t like the detective, Delene silently agreed. It was a guy thing most likely.

  “He’s just protective. Jorge told me I reminded him of one of his sisters.” Why had she just said that? She was getting too personal. Was this Cavanaugh’s way of getting her to drop her guard? Too bad, I’m on to you. Her voice took on a professional tone. “We went over every inch of Clyde’s place when we raided it the last time. You saw it. He didn’t exactly live in the Hearst Castle,” she said, referring to San Simeon, a favorite stopping-off place for tourists with a yen to see how the other side once lived. “If Clyde had a gun, he didn’t keep it on the premises.”

  “If not there, then where?” Troy asked. “He didn’t exactly strike me as someone who’d own a safety deposit box at your local bank.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that your source might be lying?”

  He shook his head. “No reason for him to do that in this case. It didn’t gain him anything to say he sold the weapon to Clyde.”

  “That you can see,” she pressed.

  “That I can see,” he agreed. This wasn’t anything he wanted to lock horns over. He liked to pick his battles and this wasn’t one of them. “So, how’s your hunt for his daughter going?”

  She bit the inside of her lower lip. “Not exactly flying along,” she admitted ruefully. “I was going to go back and ask some of the neighbors if any of them saw a woman coming or going from Clyde’s motel room since he’s been there. If someone has and I can get a sketch artist together with them, then maybe someone will recognize her and come forward—if I can get the drawing circulated.”

  “Awful lot of ‘ifs’ there,” he pointed out. “Your department’s going to fund this?”

  What business was that of his? She could feel her back going up again. Why was this detective delving so much into the way she operated? Didn’t he have enough work to keep him busy?

  “No, I know a sketch artist who owes me a favor. This is on my own time.” She couldn’t keep her questions to herself any longer. Not when he made no effort to contain his. “You moonlighting for Internal Affairs, Cavanaugh? I thought they only spied on their own people.”

  The only run-in he’d ever had with Internal Affairs was when Patrick’s wife, Maggi, had first come into their lives. But Maggi had since switched departments. He tilted his head slightly as he regarded the woman before him. Did she have something to hide? he wondered yet again.

  “Does paranoia come to you naturally,” he asked, “or do you have to work at it?”

  Good-looking or not, she decided that she didn’t much like this man. She, more than anyone, knew how thin a veneer charm had. “It comes with the territory.”

  He leaned forward, an easy smile on his lips. “In case you haven’t noticed, D’Angelo, I’m not one of your case files.”

  With effort she clamped down on the flutter that went through her. She forced her mind to focus on the case that had brought the detective here. And when she did, something occurred to her. “What if the gun you’re looking for is with Clyde’s daughter’s mother?”

  It took him a second to untangle the possessives she’d thrown at him. When he did, he wondered at the direction this was taking her. “What?”

  She sighed. This was so obvious, why hadn’t he thought of it? Or did he just want to harass her? “It stands to reason. The only one who would have anything to do with Clyde would have been someone from his own world. A junkie, a prostitute, someone on the lower rungs of life, right? Someone like that deals with low life. Maybe once there was a child involved, Clyde thought that mother and daughter might need protection, so he bought the gun for them, not for him.”

  It was a theory, Troy allowed. “It would have been simpler just to sober up, get a job and get them out of this kind of life.”

  But she knew better. Knew the way an addict’s mind worked better than she would have liked. “No,” she contradicted, “it’s simpler just to pass a hunk of metal along with a box of bullets to her.” He was looking at her strangely. “What?”

  “You don’t look like the type to be so cynical.”

  “Like I told you before, Cavanaugh, don’t try to pigeonhole me. I’m not a ‘type.’”

  Before he could say anything in response, the other man who had been at the motel room with her stuck his head into the cubicle.

  “Hey, Delene, the natives are getting restless.” Adrian nodded at Troy, then looked back at Delene. “They’re lining up for you outside. Standing room only.”

  Delene looked at Troy. “I’ve got to get back to work.”r />
  He took his cue and rose, still mulling over what she’d just said about Petrie’s girlfriend. They needed to find out who she was.

  “You might have something there.”

  “I always do,” she said, turning away. Her manner was the last word in confidence, even though she wasn’t sure what the man was referring to. She figured asking would cut into her mystique.

  ***

  “I saw her.”

  Russell Jackson’s manicured hand tightened on the telephone receiver he’d just picked up. “What?”

  There was no need to ask who the man calling him was referring to. Only one “her” interested him and everyone around him knew it.

  He couldn’t relax. “Where?” Russell barked.

  “On camera.” Jack Santangelo uttered the words quickly, afraid of angering the man he had called. “It was a news clip.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The icy tone cut clear down to the bone. Like the people he represented, Russell Jackson was not a man to trifle with.

  “I’m pretty sure. I mean, it was just a quick shot, but it looked like Diane. Yes, yes,” Jack tripped over his own tongue, eager to be done with this, wishing he’d never called. “It was her.”

  Russell had been through false alerts before, only to be disappointed. But he couldn’t pass up the chance that this time, it was her. “Where is she?”

  “In Aurora, California. It’s not too far from Sacramento,” Santangelo tacked on, since that was where he’d been sent and he didn’t want anyone thinking that he had skipped out on his assignment. “I was killing time in my hotel room and just turned on the set. I caught a glimpse of her. She was hiding behind this big guy.”

  An edge came into Russell’s voice. “She was with a man?”

  Jack knew enough to be afraid. “More like he was leading her off. Something about a witness being killed before he could testify against Miguel Mendoza. You know, that little detail Anthony sent me out here to look into.”

  “Yeah.” Details were neither needed nor wanted. The less said the better. It was a fairly safe bet that most, if not all, of their conversations were monitored. Tapes were not admissible in court, but the wrong word could send those bastards in the FBI heading off in the right direction, and they were a creative lot. They could find a way to legitimize their findings so that the judge wouldn’t throw them out.