Half a Mind (The Kate Teague Mysteries)

by Wendy Hornsby

  Kate had lost sight of Craig Hardy among the tide of bodies streaming toward the exits on the north side of the hall. Lydia had once claimed that the record for clearing the hall after class was thirty-eight seconds on a Friday before a three-day holiday. Kate shuffled her notes together and looked for a clear path: on Thanks-giving Eve the class might break their old record, leaving her only seconds to find an alternate route out before Hardy could snag her.

  Fielding questions, comments, greetings, she made a dash off stage right and headed south toward the door that led into the faculty-offices corridor. Just as she reached the south door, she felt a hand on her elbow. She spun around and was surprised to see the fresh face of Zack Kolofsky.

  “Are you keeping office hours today?” he asked.

  “No, sorry.” Kate saw Hardy puffing toward her. She put an arm behind Kolofsky and propelled him along beside her, planning to use him as cannon fodder if Hardy outran them. “Can it keep till Monday?”

  Kolofsky, though he looked more than fit, was nearly out of breath and glanced sidelong at Kate as if he thought she were rather strange. “It’s about my paper.”

  She had lost sight of Hardy again. “Are you working on the paper this weekend?”

  “No. I’m going skiing.”

  “Great,” Kate said, releasing him. The corridor leading to her office was still a clear shot. “We’ll talk about it Monday.”

  She sped away, chagrined somewhat by the puzzlement on Kolofsky’s face. She’d explain on Monday, she assured herself. Anyone who had read Craig Hardy’s twice-weekly column of gossip and speculation would understand how imperative it was for her to get shed of him. And she thought she had. But Hardy proved he was too much a pro. He must have doubled back, she thought, as he careened around the corner and skidded to a stop half a yard in front of her.

  Grinning, he thrust a newspaper in front of her. “Did you happen to see this?”

  She saw the Daily Angel banner and tried to shoulder past him. “No comment.”

  “Come on. Be a sport.”

  “I don’t know anything about anything.”

  He was quick, but Kate managed to sidestep him. She had to give him credit for tenaciousness; he stuck close beside her, sidling through the crowd. She sighed as she glanced at him. “If you want information about the head that was found in the bay, you should be at the inquest now.”

  “It’s over. Anyway, who cares? Wasn’t even a local boy. I’m more interested in your reaction to this.”

  Again he thrust the newspaper in front of her. She snatched it from him. “These are classified ads,” she said.

  “You haven’t seen it, then?”

  “No.” She tried giving the paper back, but he held his hands away like a child refusing a face-wash, so she let the paper drop.

  He recovered quickly, snapping the paper off the floor before anyone stepped on it.

  “Okay, then, listen to this. From yesterday’s paper.” He walked backward in front of her, springing on the balls of his feet as he read. “‘FICTITIOUS-BUSINESS-NAME STATEMENT. The following person is doing business as: Byrd and Teague, Attorneys-at-Law, a corporation. Signed, Carl Beaufort Teague, President.’”

  Kate shrugged. “So?”

  “Come on, give me more than that. This is a major coup. Your ex-husband has infiltrated your family’s law firm, the oldest continuously operating business in Santa Angelica, and killed it off. How do you feel about it?”

  “I feel great, looking forward to the holiday. Hope the weather holds.”

  “Better you should tell me than some outsider,” he persisted. “Story like this could even be picked up by the Enquirer.”

  “There’s no story here, Craig.” She was walking as fast as she could, but he stuck close. “The old law firm has simply incorporated to take advantage of the new tax structure. No big deal.”

  “No big deal? My sources at the courthouse tell me your ex has filed to have his birth certificate changed from ‘father unknown’ to something that will knock the lid off the Byrd family.”

  “Stuff it, Hardy,” she said as she reached her open office door.

  “Okay.” He threw up his hands in submission. “But remember, I’m only the first to ask.”

  She slammed the door in his face and waited to hear his rubber-soled retreat.

  “Damn pest,” she muttered as she yanked open the filing cabinet beside the door. She dropped her notes in and slammed the drawer shut. She wished she knew what Carl was up to this time and which would be harder, having him committed or hiring a hit man. She wanted him to stop. The tenaciousness she had once found exciting in him now reminded her of persistent, blood-sucking sand fleas in summer. She opened the drawer again just so she could slam it. “Damn, fucking, stupid pest.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She jumped at the sound of the quiet voice behind her. Sucking in a breath, she turned around slowly, looking for something to use as a cudgel along the way. Had someone let the Enquirer in?

  Though she had a notebook open on her lap, the middle-aged woman sitting half-hidden in the corner beside Kate’s desk was just about the most harmless-looking person she had ever seen. She was small, thin, faded. There was a sadness about her that seemed to have leeched the color from her eyes so that the beige wall behind her showed through.

  “You’re not from the press, are you?” Kate asked, not yet ready to let her guard down.

  “No.” The woman looked at her lap. “I don’t blame you for being careful, though. I know how they can be.”

  “Have we met?”

  The woman shook her head. “I shouldn’t be here, bothering you. But I thought that as a mother you might be willing to help.”

  As a mother? Kate thought. The woman was beginning to spook her with her quiet intensity. “Whom are you looking for?”

  The beige eyes darted up. “Aren’t you Professor Byrd?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your husband gave your address at the inquest this morning. I know it was pretty high-handed, but I went to the house to talk to you. I couldn’t figure out how the gates work,” she said. “Are those condos in there?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” There was a pregnant pause. “Anyway, this man finally came out and I told him I wanted to talk to you, so he said I should come here. Told me the name to ask for.”

  “I see,” Kate said, though she didn’t see at all. As a precaution, she reached over and opened the office door. When no one, including Craig Hardy, bled in, she went over to her desk and sat down facing the woman. She folded her hands on the blotter and took a deep breath. “The man you talked to, was he tall, blond?”

  “No. He wasn’t very big. Had a dark beard.”

  “You haven’t told me your name.”

  “Lillian Morrow. Most people call me Lily.”

  “Mrs. Morrow,” Kate said slowly. “I have neither a husband nor a child.”

  “Lieutenant Tejeda isn’t your husband?”

  “Did you want to speak with him?”

  She shook her head. “I already tried.”

  “Mrs. Morrow, I think you had better tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I thought if you were a mother, you would understand and maybe help me. Get him to help.” Mrs. Morrow took a tissue from her handbag and delicately wiped her eyes and nose. “It was my son, Wally Junior, they found down by your house.”

  “Found?” Carl’s latest shenanigan still cluttered her thinking, so it took a moment to figure out what boy she was talking about. When she realized this woman belonged to the head in the bay, she almost wished to have Craig Hardy back as a diversion.

  “Mrs. Morrow,” Kate said, “I’m sorry about your son, but I can’t imagine how I can help you.”

  “I don’t know exactly, either. When the chaplain from the Marines called my husband and me and told us about our boy, he put us in touch with this group of parents, Silver Threads, whose boys were killed in ways like what happened to Wally Junior
. These other parents told us about Lieutenant Tejeda and how he caught that Arthur Silver, found out what had happened to their sons. Everyone says this killing has something to do with Arthur Silver. But the police tell me Lieutenant Tejeda won’t take on the investigation of my Wally’s case.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Morrow, but he can’t. He’s not well enough.”

  “Well enough?” The spark of a well-banked fire flashed in Lillian Morrow’s eyes. “He looks well enough.”

  “Jeez!” Lydia seethed, kicking off her shoes as she came into the office. Her anger seemed to fill the small space left in their shared cubicle. “Next time I see that shit Craig Hardy, I’m going to deck him.”

  She tossed her briefcase into the corner behind her desk, opened a bottom drawer, and took out a pair of jogging shoes. She had her sweat socks halfway on before she seemed to notice Lillian Morrow.

  “Oh, sorry,” Lydia said, simmering down. “Am I interrupting?”

  “No,” Kate said, “I think we’re finished. Mrs. Morrow, I’m sorry about your situation, but there is nothing I can do to help you. Eddie Green is in charge of the investigation and he’s very competent.”

  But Lillian Morrow didn’t budge. In fact, she seemed to plant herself more firmly on her chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate repeated.

  “Professor Byrd,” she said, “do you know what I keep thinking about?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “The devil’s disciple who killed my Wally.”

  Lydia stood up and edged toward Kate. “Everything okay?”

  Kate only glanced at Lydia, but she reached for her office mate’s hand and squeezed it as she turned back to the desperate little woman pressed into the corner. “Mrs. Morrow, could I call someone from the parents’ group to come and get you?”

  “I keep thinking,” Mrs. Morrow said, “that tonight that sick example of humanity who killed my son is going to sleep in a warm bed. Tomorrow he’ll probably sit himself down to a Thanksgiving dinner and eat his fill. Can you imagine what knowing that does to me and my husband, when we don’t even know where our Wally’s remains are? Is he out in the cold somewhere, left for carrion like one mother told me her son was? Did he suffer that last night?” She had wrung her tissue into lint. “I have to know what happened to Wally.”

  Kate understood the agony of not knowing. She remembered the three-week vigil her grandfather had kept before her father’s body had finally snagged on Byrd Rock and surfaced. He wouldn’t eat in case his son was hungry, or sleep, or laugh, or show evidence of his own life spark when his boy might have lost his. She had been too young to understand much more than the raw pain of loss. But she had sensed early on her grandfather’s guilt for having lived when the proper ordering of things demanded that he die before his child. In Lillian Morrow’s face she saw the same mute grief her grandfather had carried for the rest of his life.

  Kate leaned forward and touched the woman’s arm. “You can trust Eddie Green to do everything possible.”

  Lillian Morrow shook her head, her mouth set in a stubborn pucker. “They told me Lieutenant Tejeda has the gift.”

  The gift? Lydia was dialing the telephone on her desk. Upside down, Kate watched her press the first three numbers—777. She pushed the cancel button before Lydia dialed the last 7 and alerted security.

  “Are you sure?” Lydia asked.

  “No.” Kate stood and moved toward the door, hoping Lillian Morrow would follow. She had to be dissuaded. And she had to be kept from Tejeda. “I’ll tell Lieutenant Tejeda about your concerns. He’ll do what’s best.”

  “I had hoped you had children of your own.” Mrs. Morrow gathered her vinyl handbag and wadded the tailings of Kleenex; she had read Kate’s dismissal. In the doorway, she paused and faced Kate. “Can I call you?”

  “If you need anything, you should call Eddie Green.”

  “All right,” she said, as if she hadn’t the strength to hide her disappointment.

  “Mrs. Morrow … Lily,” Kate said, feeling trapped between the woman’s grief and Tejeda’s needs. “I’m sure Lieutenant Tejeda is already doing everything he can to help Sergeant Green.”

  Mrs. Morrow nodded. “Just ask him to imagine if it was his own son.”

  8

  “Don’t get no sand on my new clean floor,” Rachel, the thrice-a-week cleaning lady, scolded Tejeda as he came through the back door. “Kate has me polishing the foyer now, so I don’t have time to do this floor again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tejeda grinned. He kicked off his sandy Reeboks and dropped them outside, pausing for a long breath. The heat wave had devolved into cold, sticky fog, but he felt hot and prickly. The small headache he had brought home from the inquest now throbbed like an anvil chorus. And for once, a run on the beach hadn’t helped.

  “Dad?” Richie, his handsome son, came toward him through the utility room from the direction of the kitchen.

  “I thought you had classes this afternoon?”

  “You look great, Dad.” Richie submitted to his father’s habitual bear hug and squeeze. Tejeda held on longer than usual, trying to reconcile this bristly-faced man, who stood at least two inches taller than his own six-feet-two, with the boy he had sent away to college three years ago. Every time he saw Richie, which was fairly often, he noticed in his son quantum leaps toward adulthood. He missed living with him, being able to watch every nuance of his development. While he loved the tall, self-assured man Richie had become, he missed the boy he had been not so long ago.

  Tejeda stepped back and grinned, but he had to swallow hard before he could talk. “So, what’s new?”

  “My roommate, Lance Lumsden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He couldn’t afford to fly home to Montana, so I brought him for the weekend,” Richie said, bringing back images of pigeons with broken wings and stray kittens Tejeda regularly used to find hospitalized in the family garage. “Can he stay?”

  “There’s certainly room for one more in this inn,” Tejeda said, wrapping an arm around Richie’s muscular shoulders and walking him back toward the kitchen. “But check with Kate.”

  “I did.” He opened the kitchen door. “She said okay.”

  Lance Lumsden, the Nordic-blond roommate, was sitting at the kitchen table with Trinh, polishing silver and trying to quiz her about her escape from Vietnam.

  Tejeda held out a hand. “Nice to see you, Lance.”

  “Thanks for letting me come,” Lance said, wiping his hand on a flannel cloth before extending it toward Tejeda. “Rich said you didn’t mind the occasional stray.”

  “The more the merrier.”

  “Sergeant Green called.” Trinh took a bead on him down the blade of a daggerous silver carving knife, looking for spots on the stainless blade. “Say he call back.”

  “Tell him I’m not here.” Tejeda clapped Richie on the shoulder. “Think you two big strong men can help me put leaves in the dining table?”

  “Sure.” Richie held the swing door for his father and Lance.

  “There’s a gizmo here.” Tejeda went over to the massive mahogany table and groped the underside for the spring release. When he pressed it, the table popped open at the center.

  “Speaking of strays, Dad.” Richie picked up a polished table leaf and seemed to give it a lot of attention. Tejeda recognized the avoidance of eye contact and half-expected to find a puppy in a box somewhere. “Jena’s family is going up to see her grandparents, but she has to stay down for a modeling job Friday. Any problem if she comes for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Jena?”

  “Jena Rummel.”

  “Little Jena Rummel from high school?” Tejeda said as he helped Lance fit the second leaf into the table.

  Richie’s cheeks took on color. “Jena and I have been seeing each other again.”

  “She’s at Santa Barbara?” Tejeda asked.

  “San Diego State.”

  “San Diego,” Tejeda repeated. Richie had dated a lot of girls—h
is friends said, enviously, that he had a gift—but he had never been serious about anyone. Except Jena. Richie had never been able to be casual about Jena. Such a beautiful couple, Tejeda thought, slim, tawny-blond Jena and Richie, who was tall and dark-haired like himself, but with Cassie’s fair Irish skin. He could still see them together, their heads bent close, oblivious of everything except each other. And then the young woman he held in his mind’s eye turned and the smiling face he saw was Cassie’s. He shuddered as if he had been caught cheating, and tried to push Cassie away. He hadn’t seen Cassie for a long time, had hardly given her a thought since he had met Kate. So why, he wanted to know, was she suddenly crowding his thoughts?

  Tejeda looked over at Richie. “San Diego is over two hundred miles from Santa Barbara.”

  “If we leave after our last lab section on Friday,” Lance offered, apparently oblivious of Richie’s scowl, “we can usually beat the traffic through L.A. and get to San Diego in four, five hours.”

  Tejeda put his hand over his throbbing temple. “We need to talk about the car.”

  “Okay,” Richie sighed. “But can Jena come tomorrow?”

  “Everyone will be here, Grandma, Nana, Aunt Teri.”

  “I know.”

  “If it’s that important, then I guess she better come.” Tejeda went over to the sideboard and picked up the place cards he had coerced Otis Washington’s wife to make for him. “Make her a place card, and one for Lance.”

  Trinh came in from the kitchen carrying a towel full of silver. She glanced at Tejeda as she spread it on the sideboard next to him. “Now how many for dinner?”

  “Let me see.” He went through the stack of place cards and checked them off against the list Kate had given him over the coroner’s telephone: himself, Kate, Theresa, Richie, his sister, Teri, her husband and two kids, his parents and grandmother, Reece and Lydia, Eddie Green and his son, now Jena and Lance. He stopped when he got to Trinh, unsure whether she would sit at the table with them or would serve. But she was on the list. He restacked the cards and handed them to her. “I count eighteen, Trinh. When you set the table, would you put these around?”