Joel didn’t understand why having known a murder suspect was something a parent would share with his children, but he supposed it was his cousin’s idea of a brush with fame. “Did you know Miranda?” he asked.
“Not really. At least not well. Brian and I hung out sometimes, especially that summer after high school. We both worked in the kitchen at a local restaurant. I never did understand why the rich college kids got the slick jobs like lifeguard and caddy, and the locals got stuck in the kitchen, but that’s the way it worked in those days. I guess it was all in who you knew and who you could trade favors with. While we busted our butts, the rich kids saw summer jobs as a chance to party and get laid.”
“I’m not sure it’s changed all that much.” Joel had worked for his father during the summers when he was in high school and college, but he’d heard the same complaint from friends over the years. “Tell me about Riley.”
“He was an okay kid. Kind of moody, though he never tried to weasel his way out of working or anything. I doubt we’d have been friends if it wasn’t for the job. I hardly knew him when were in school.”
“Do you think he killed Miranda Saxton?”
“Back then, I didn’t know what to think. He had the hots for her, and I think she liked him, too, although it wasn’t all heavy and in-your-face like you see with kids today. I couldn’t see Brian hurting her.”
“Not even if he got angry? I’ve heard he had quite a temper.”
“Yeah, he did. I never saw him get violent, but what did I know? The cops arrested him so they must have figured otherwise, even if they couldn’t convince the DA. I’ll tell you, it weirded me out, the idea that I might have worked alongside a killer all summer.”
“And what do you think now? The police are looking for him, you know.”
“Yeah, I read that. I don’t know all the details, but I gather there’s some new evidence. I guess they’re pretty sure they can make the case stick this time. Say, I’ve got some photos that were taken the night she disappeared. You want me to send them to you? Ought to add a little pizzazz to your story.” Max laughed. “Just be sure I get credit when it’s published.”
“Photos?” Joel looked up from his desk at the Post’s deadline calendar posted on the wall at the front of the room. The right photo could make a story.
“Like I said, I was going through old stuff, telling the kids about Miranda, and I found some photos I’d taken that night. There was a big party, a bonfire, at the beach. It was mostly the rich folks but Brian and me and a few of the other local guys, we were there, too.”
Joel felt a jolt of excitement. Max was the first person he’d talked to who’d been at the party the night Miranda disappeared. The college kids had been impossible to track down after twenty years, and he hadn’t found anyone local.
“How did Brian seem that night?” he asked.
“He was always a quiet one, but he seemed to be having fun. Dancing, joking around, drinking some. He spent most of the evening with Miranda, but it wasn’t like they were a twosome. She was with other guys, as well.”
“Any of the other guys give her a hard time?”
“Not that I saw. Everyone knew she wasn’t a skank, and with her father being a senator and all . . . I won’t say we were all on our best behavior, but nobody got out of line, either.”
“An older couple saw Brian and Miranda alone together later that night. On the beach away from the party. Did that surprise you?”
“Not really. Like I said, Brian was a quiet one. He was more comfortable one on one than in a crowd. And it was pretty obvious how he felt about Miranda.”
“What about Miranda? Wouldn’t she have been wary about going off alone with him?”
Max hooted loudly. “Geez, Joel, what planet do you live on? Miranda was a very pretty, red-blooded, seventeen-year-old girl and Brian was a decent-looking guy she’d known practically the whole summer.”
Joel felt himself blush and he was glad Max wasn’t able to see him. Joel’s lack of experience with red-blooded teenage females was probably obvious to his cousin. Joel hadn’t even kissed a girl until he’d been in college, and Julia had been his first, and only, relationship.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Brian?” Joel asked.
“Never saw him after that night. We weren’t really friends, and with the cops all over him and everyone in town talking about him, I kept my distance. No point getting involved, you know? I went away to school and that was the end of it. I guess he was still around when I came home that Christmas, but I never talked to him. I’ll scan the photos and email them to you. Just remember to spell my name right.” Max finished the sentence with a hearty laugh.
When the conversation ended, Joel transcribed his chicken-scrawl notes onto the computer. He also jotted thoughts of his own, piecing together what he’d read elsewhere and fleshing out his vision of the evening Miranda Saxton disappeared, as though he were writing a book. The more he learned about Brian and Miranda, the more real they became to Joel. He could envision the party on the shore that summer evening as though he’d been there himself.
He closed out the file and opened a new blank document. He knew he needed to get cracking on the article about the high school football coach, but he was having trouble coming up with a catchy opening, probably because his heart wasn’t in it. Well-liked coach in his sixth season in Littleton, worked his players hard, emphasized sportsmanship, more wins than losses this year (by two games)—it wasn’t much of a story. Still, an assignment was an assignment, and readers of the Littleton Post cared about stuff like high school football. Maybe more than they cared about a twenty-year-old murder. Which was why, Joel reminded himself, he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life writing for a small-town paper if he could help it.
But instead of getting down to work on the article, he took another look at the note that had arrived two days ago: a single sheet of computer paper printed with the name Roy Walker and the opening paragraphs of Joel’s story on Miranda Saxton from last week. It was unsigned and there was no return address. Joel had ignored the note at first because of looming deadlines, and had then decided that it was a hoax of some sort. Joel had checked Walker out on the web. He was a DA in California who’d been killed recently—the victim of a convenience store robbery. Whoever sent the note had to have known that Walker had been shot, since it bore a San Francisco postmark. Joel couldn’t very well talk to a man who was dead, so why send the note?
This morning’s mail brought a second letter, again unsigned. Two black-and-white photos printed on a sheet of computer paper, along with the words “Notice the resemblance? Riley aged well.” One photo was a file shot of Brian Riley from the Littleton Post, the other from the obituary of Roy Walker that had appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The two men did look a little alike, but so what? Walker had grown up in the Midwest and attended California schools as an undergrad and for law school. Joel hadn’t been able to find any connection to Georgia or the east at all.
Joel’s conversation with Max must have stirred something in his mind, however, because when he looked at the photos now, he saw that the resemblance was really rather striking. But why had the notes come to him rather than the police? Or maybe similar notes had been sent to the police, and they’d already followed up and dismissed them. Still, he ought to double-check with the authorities since they were actively looking for Brian Riley.
Joel sighed, minimized the blank document page on his computer screen, and went to talk to Skeet in his office.
“Hey there, hot stuff,” Skeet said by way of greeting. “You going to have that story on Coach Hanson for me anytime soon?”
“Yeah, it’s mostly written. I just need an opening angle.” Mostly written in his mind, anyway. Once he got the lead in, he could pound the rest of the story out in no time.
“Shit, Joel. You’re not going for the Pulitzer prize, here. It’s a simple sports story for the local paper.”
�
��Yeah, I know.”
Skeet scratched his neck, and scooted his chair closer to his desk. “What’s up?”
Joel put the two notes on Skeet’s desk. “I got this in the mail a few days ago.” He tapped the page on the left. “This one came this morning,” he added, pointing to the second note. “Roy Walker is a DA in Oakland, California. Or was. He was killed recently. Somebody seems to think he might have been Brian Riley.”
Skeet leaned forward and studied the photos. “Could be,” he said after a moment. “Or not.”
“It’s probably nothing, but I think I should turn them over to Chief Holt, don’t you?”
“Yeah, probably. On the other hand, there’s no rush. Walker’s not going anywhere.”
“But—”
“If there is any truth to what our anonymous tipster is suggesting, it will be quite a story. Finish that piece on Coach Hanson, then take a few days off. You might even want to fly to California to check on things firsthand.”
Joel started to protest. California, home to his fantasies of fame and fortune, was also a frightening proposition, and Joel had never been there. “A plane ticket costs a lot, especially last minute.”
“The paper won’t be able to cover the whole thing, but I think we could come up with something.”
“There’s my dad to think about. I can’t just leave—”
“I guess I could send Monica, instead.”
Monica Couch was a thorn in Joel’s side. In the sides of most of the people at the paper. She took female assertiveness to a whole new level.
There was no way Joel was going to let her get her claws into his story. And then he realized what Skeet was offering him. A ticket in the biggest lottery of all—a chance to make a name for himself. He’d never get anywhere if he didn’t take risks.
“I’ll book a flight for tomorrow morning and I’ll have that story on the coach on your desk in under an hour.”
Joel mentally clicked his heels on his way out of the office. He was suddenly sure he was on to something big.
Chapter 29
Diana stared at the postal clerk in disbelief. “My husband is deceased,” she repeated, in case the woman had simply misunderstood. “I have a copy of the death certificate.”
The clerk, an angular woman with thin lips and a glinty stare, nodded. “I heard you the first time. But without a key or a court order, I can’t let you have access.”
Diana had searched Roy’s drawers for the key and hadn’t found it. “I’m his wife,” Diana explained. She pulled out her driver’s license. “See.”
The clerk didn’t bother to look. “Even if that’s true”—her tone made it clear she wasn’t taking the statement for fact—“that doesn’t give you have the right to Mr. Walker’s mail. Your name is not on the contract.”
“It’s a post office box, for God’s sake,” Diana said, losing patience, “not a safe deposit box.”
The clerk remained stone-faced. “We respect our customers’ privacy.”
Sure, Diana thought. If privacy was so important why was her mail was repeatedly misdelivered into neighbors’ boxes. and theirs to hers? She’d once inadvertently opened a stranger’s bank statement, assuming it was her own. The post office didn’t have much of a track record when it came to protecting people’s privacy.
But it clearly did with respect to following rules. The clerk looked over Diana’s shoulder and called, “Next in line.”
Exasperated, Diana stormed out of the post office. She’d have a hard time convincing Ted Morris, a friend of Roy’s from his law school days and the executor of his will, that he needed to come in person to clean out Roy’s post office box. She wasn’t sure she even wanted Ted to know about it. Not until she figured out Roy’s connection to Miranda Saxton’s murder.
Still steaming, Diana leaned against the side of the post office building and called Bernie Fusco. She pressed her fingers against her ear to block the background noise of traffic on the street.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The idiot postal clerk won’t let me pick up Roy’s mail. Can you send another copy of your bill to my home? Along with anything else Roy, uh, requested.”
“I’ll resend the bill, but there wasn’t anything else. Not at this point. I already sent him a police photo of the pendant they found with Miranda Saxton’s body. I could send it again if you want.”
“Yes, please.”
“I appreciate your willingness to pay my bill. Lots of people wouldn’t want to, given the circumstances.”
Diana would have liked to claim some sort of moral high ground on the matter, but in truth, she was simply eager to get her hands on whatever could help her understand who Roy was.
“How long have you been a private investigator?” Diana asked after a moment.
“Almost fifteen years now. Made the switch when I got fed up with the politics of big-city police work.”
“Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
“Sure. Can’t promise I’ll have an answer though.”
“How hard is it for a person to come up with a new identity? To disappear and start over, so to speak.”
“Not hard at all. Unless, of course, you’ve got the Mafia after you or you top the fed’s most wanted list. Even then, there’ve been a lot of people who’ve escaped detection for years. All you need is a birth certificate. You can build from there.”
Is that what Roy had done? Taken the birth certificate of a dead boy and built himself a new identity? “When did Roy first contact you?” Diana asked.
“It must have been ten years ago, at least. But like I told you before, until the discovery of Miranda Saxton’s remains, it was mostly a matter of keeping my eyes and ears open—whether there’d been any new leads as to what might have happened to her, any witnesses coming forward, that sort of thing. I sent him semiannual reports but they were mighty short. Wasn’t much to communicate.”
All of which made sense if Roy was really Brian Riley.
Diana gave Fusco her home address and he promised to keep her informed of any new developments. What those developments might be or how they might be of use to her were questions she wasn’t ready to face just yet.
Nor, she realized as she headed for her car, was she eager to tackle what awaited her at home—the writing of her final, farewell column. Hey, it’s been a great gig but my life has changed and I have to earn a decent income, so adios, folks. It’s been fun while it lasted.
That didn’t cut it. Especially because she was going to miss writing the column. She’d started it when Jeremy was a baby, after quitting her job with the DA’s office. It was a perfect outlet for someone who wanted to spend time with her family but didn’t want her mind to rot. Diana loved the act of writing, even when she was frustrated by deadlines. But she didn’t want to get all maudlin about her change in circumstances, either. And writing what was in her heart was out of the question.
She was also reluctant to head home because Chloe was there. That was the point of having help, of course, but sharing her home with a stranger felt awkward. It wasn’t anything about Chloe, who by all appearances was going to work out wonderfully. It was simply the fact that someone was there in her house. Could Diana sit for a minute and read the newspaper while Chloe worked? Could she make herself a cup of coffee without asking Chloe if she wanted one also? Diana was hopeful it would all work out over time, but for the moment, home wasn’t quite the sanctuary it had been.
She’d taken Chloe with her this morning when she dropped Jeremy off at school and introduced her to Jeremy’s teachers and some of the other mothers. She’d taken Chloe grocery shopping, pointing out favorite brands and preferences in fruits and produce. And then she’d taken Roy’s Lexus, leaving her old Volvo wagon for Chloe, and driven off, wondering what in the hell she’d gotten herself in for.
Diana drummed her fingers on the car’s steering wheel, checked her watch, and called Chloe. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“Great. You have an awesome w
ashing machine.”
The machine was already a couple of years old, and Diana hadn’t considered it anything but functional even when new. Then again, she hadn’t been relying on a coin-operated Laundromat. “Glad you like it.”
“Oh, there was call for you,” Chloe said. “I let the machine pick it up but I couldn’t help overhearing the message. It was from someone named Alec Thurston.”
Alec was the senior Alameda County district attorney, and Roy’s boss. She’d talked to him by phone several times after Roy was shot, and he’d attended Roy’s funeral. There was no reason for him to be calling her now, unless they’d made the connection between Roy and Brian Riley.
Diana hadn’t wanted to go to the authorities with her suspicions. Not yet, anyway. Roy had been her husband. Jeremy’s father. His memory was all she had left of him and she didn’t want it dragged through the mud. But neither could she ignore the bone-deep apprehension that shadowed her.
Maybe it was better if the authorities had discovered Roy wasn’t who he claimed to be. The matter would no longer be in her hands. Still, she was surprised to find she was shaking.
“Did he say what it was about?” she asked.
“No, just that he wanted you to call him as soon as possible.”
“Can you play the message again and get his number for me?”
“I already wrote it down.” Chloe read off the number. “I really didn’t mean to listen. I was in the kitchen when the phone rang so I couldn’t help but hear.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Diana told her. But she made a mental note to silence the volume on her answering machine in the future.
Diana’s pulse raced as she punched in the number.
“Diana,” Alec bellowed, “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. How are you doing?”
“Hanging in there.”
“It’s got to be rough. Our thoughts are with you. We miss Roy here, too. He was an asset to the department in so many ways.”
“Thank you.” Diana braced herself for what was coming. But Alec’s next question wasn’t what she expected.
Lying With Strangers Page 20