by Wyborn Senna
NANCY_PANTS: P.J., I never agreed to sell you my Swing-A-Ling Tutti train case, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
PJ-RULEZ: No, I just suppose you listed it on eBay for shits and giggles, and when I won it, you had seller’s remorse and changed your mind about parting with it. I don’t know what it means when you “sell” something and send someone an empty box instead, but I call it theft.
NANCY_PANTS: You’re a liar, P.J. Ask anyone here on the board if I’ve ever sent them an empty box. As if!
Caresse’s memories of P.J. were vague. All she knew about her was that she was a frequent poster who generally argued with everyone and criticized what many said and did. She checked her BBB profile, but it was devoid of data and photos, and her avatar was simply an orange frowny-face emoticon set against black. Her email address was not on file, and the only way to contact her was through the board.
While a country song started up in the background, Caresse did a search for all of PJ-RULEZ’s postings from the most recent to those dating back as far as the archives would take her. Her last notes, written January 5, involved a heated debate between herself and—holy Ken and Skipper—the late Gayle Grace.
GRACEFUL: P.J., thanks for posting the picture of your AG dressed in the Debutante Ball gown you won, but I think it has a replacement rosebud on it. Notice how it is off by just a shade? I mean, it was well-crafted and everything, don’t get me wrong, and would pass inspection for all but the most discerning eye, but I really think the bud was replaced.
PJ-RULEZ: Hi, Gayle. Thanks for your comments, but you can take your “discerning eye” and shove it. I have the gown right here in front of me (you don’t) and I know what I have, and the rosebud has NOT been replaced.
After that, P.J. was silent.
Keeping a low profile.
Now things were beginning to come together.
A thrill ran through her. She needed the police to find out who P.J. was. There would be records at eBay and PayPal, including her home address.
She wasn’t going to call Rowell and Carter, but she had to send them her audio cassette from KVEC anyway, so she had the novel idea of making a second cassette for them outlining what she had discovered. Bringing the cassette back in style, one murder case at a time. She retrieved the micro-cassette recorder from her desk drawer, popped in a fresh tape, sat back in her chair, and rambled for a good fifteen minutes. Then she ejected the tape, put it back in its tiny translucent case, and placed it alongside her KVEC interview tape.
Next, she wrote a short, friendly note on a piece of blank typing paper in blue ballpoint. She pulled out her wallet and retrieved the business card Rowell had given her. Grabbing a padded envelope from her bottom desk drawer, she slid both cassettes inside the mailer with her handwritten note.
The bigger tape is the interview I did at KVEC, which I promised I’d send along. The smaller tape contains some theories I’ve come up with. In other words, I think I have a lead on a potential suspect, but I would need you to agree to access some records if you think I’m onto something.
She smiled. The note was understated, as she’d wanted it to be. No amateur sleuth’s over-the-top proclamations, exclaiming, “By gosh, I think I’ve got her!”
She signed it, Best Regards, Caresse Redd.
56
P.J had never been angrier.
She’d waited down the block from Jordanne’s apartment Tuesday night, but Jordanne never arrived. At 11 p.m., she drove to Darby’s apartment and saw Jordanne’s beat-up Mustang parked on the street out front. So that was it, then. A stalemate.
As if Darby sensed his half-sister’s presence, he appeared at his window, scanned the street, and spotted her. “Damn it! She’s relentless!” He turned to look at Jordanne, who was resting on the aging brown couch. She was bundled in a plaid blanket and had a pillow beneath her head. Darby ran his fingers through his hair and sat down in the overstuffed brown chair across from the couch. He was filled with love for his baby angel. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to care for her. He wanted to protect her.
“That was your sister?” Jordanne stared at him dully. The ordeal of being on P.J.’s bad side was taking its toll. “She’s never gonna leave me alone.”
“Then you should just move in with me,” Darby suggested, temporarily brightening.
Jordanne’s sour expression told him not to press it. “Darby, if we move in together, it shouldn’t be because I’m hiding from your lunatic sister.”
“Half-sister,” Darby corrected her. “Our mother is sane. She’s the one with a crazy father. Took off and never let anyone know where he went.”
A tear slid down Jordanne’s cheek and, embarrassed, she twisted in the blanket so she could bury her face in the pillow.
Darby got up and went over to the couch. He knelt down beside it and rested his head against her ribcage, listening to her heart.
“I love you, Jordanne,” he said.
He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then the floodgates opened.
Darby knew that when it came to women, there was good crying and there was bad crying. He just didn’t know which this was.
He got up, lit a cigarette, and paced.
He walked over to the window again and saw that P.J. had left.
He squinted at the full moon full and it blurred in his vision. Like Jordanne, he began to cry, but silently, wiping his eyes as soon as fresh tears leaked out.
You gotta go, P.J. Even if I’ve gotta make it happen.
57
Caresse got a call at the County Times from Rowell at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 7.
“Let me ask you something,” he began, without preface.
Her hand trembled like a leaf on the receiver. She held up her index finger to Anthony, who had come over to her desk to talk. She knew he was at odds with the trio of brats Jenna had left in his custody and that he was ready to give them their walking papers. She had overheard whispers all week that the fat needed to be cut from the budget and that they were candidates for trimming. Anthony stood there a moment, sipping coffee from his mug, grinning. He was wearing a dark purple shirt teamed with a perfectly matched plum and avocado patterned tie. She didn’t know him very well yet, but she wanted him to take her shopping.
“Wha—what?” she asked Rowell. “I mean, sure, go ahead.”
Rowell chuckled, deep and low. “How easy do you think it is for us to find a micro-cassette player in Walnut Creek?”
“Ve—ver—very hard?” She had wasted their time. She had sent them a tape they couldn’t play, and they would have had to find a way to listen. And then, if they did, they probably thought what I had to say made no sense at all, she thought.
Anthony motioned to her. He mouthed the word “later,” and then raised his pinkie and thumb toward his ear in the universal “call me” gesture.
She nodded, waiting for Rowell to speak.
“It took a day, but we found one at Radio Shack.”
So they had listened to the tape. “Listen,” she began to apologize. “It was late. I was up and—”
“You’re a brilliant woman,” Rowell said.
The phone slipped a bit in her sweaty palm.
“I’m—”
“We got your letter on Wednesday and by this morning, after we worked with PayPal and eBay, everything was solid. You know her, by the way.”
“Know who?”
“Someone who looks like a very promising suspect. Sierra Walsh.”
Caresse was not only sweating, she was confused. “I thought the woman causing all the trouble on the Best Barbie Board was named P.J.”
“That’s Sierra’s nickname. We called the number provided by eBay and one of Sierra’s staff members at Barbie International answered. When she repeated, ‘P.J.? I don’t think we have a P.J. here,’ Sierra took the phone from her and said, ‘This is P.J.’ Apparently it’s a nickname only her immediate family uses, and she thought she was taking a call from someone close.”
�
��She doesn’t look exactly like the police sketch,” Caresse said. “I mean, she’s got the blond hair and everything, but—” The room started to tilt and she sat down hard.
“Close enough to question her and find out where she’s been during the times of the murders. We’ve contacted the FBI and they’re letting us do the honors of securing a hair sample. There’s enough for probable cause, thanks to you. She should have known better than to write that note from Nancy’s house. Oh, and guess what she drives?”
Caresse didn’t know.
“A white four-speed Miata roadster.”
“The same car Nancy’s neighbor saw a redhead get into.”
“The neighbor had additional details when we called him again yesterday. He mentioned she was carrying heavy bags that looked like Army duffels. He imagined maybe she was from out of town, visiting someone, and that it was just her luggage. But it struck him as strange that such a good-looking woman would be lugging Army gear.”
Army duffels were missing from the Uzamba home in Vegas. “Wow.”
“I know, huh? So we’re gonna go talk to her on Monday, first thing.”
“Wow,” Caresse repeated, starting to feel foolish about her speechlessness.
“So that’s it,” Rowell said. “We’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Okay, thanks.” She was stunned. She needed to process.
“Good work,” he reiterated. “Oh, and by the way—”
“Yes?”
“You give a kick-ass radio interview. I’m gonna go get me a collector Barbie if all of this pans out.”
58
It was Saturday, Heath was in Beijing, and P.J. was itching to move the Rubbermaid stacks from the garage into her exercise room. She longed to be alone in the house with her dolls, spreading them out on the carpet with room enough to see them all at once. It would be a magnificent assembly of goddesses, certain to lessen the sting of Darby’s betrayal.
After breakfast, she told her maid Vicky, her personal assistant Wendy, and her weekend chef Michel that she had decided to surprise them with paid time off.
Delighted, Vicky parked the vacuum cleaner in the closet and gave P.J. a hearty hug. Michel asked if he needed to finish scrubbing the pans first, and P.J. told him no. Wendy threw her day planner, BlackBerry, and Kindle into her large bag, issued a terse, “Okay, see you next week,” and hurried out before P.J. could change her mind.
P.J. sighed, went upstairs, and changed into denim shorts and a plain pink tee. She tied her hair back with a pink bandanna and slid on a pair of white Keds. She was going to work up a sweat, so she didn’t want to overdress.
Once in the garage, she surveyed her storage bins. The stacked cubes with translucent drawers took the entire middle area meant for a third car. They were lined up in rows, positioned between her Miata and Heath’s 1967 red Sunbeam Alpine. P.J. never drove Heath’s car, and he never drove it to LAX or the Burbank Airport, preferring to take the shuttle or a cab there and back from his constant trips.
The concrete floor in P.J.’s garage was freshly swept, and sunlight poured in through the open garage door. There was no other way into the garage save for the way the cars entered. This was one drawback P.J. resented, because it meant she would have to carry the storage bins out through the front, around the corner, up the path, and into the house.
Carrying each set of drawers into the house and returning to the garage took ten minutes per trip. When she was done with eight rounds, she opened the driver’s side of the Miata and sat on the edge of the seat.
I need something to drink, she realized, getting up and slamming the car door.
She grabbed one more set of drawers and went into the house just as Darby arrived and parked around the corner. Heading across the street to a fenced yard, he ducked behind a gnarled tree and looked toward P.J.’s home. The Sunbeam and Miata were parked in the open garage, but Heath’s Sunbeam was covered, which meant he was out of town. Knowing P.J. would never be gone long with her dolls in plain sight, he gathered she was moving them into the house. Quickly, he dashed across the street and into the open garage. The garage door opener lay on a shelf near the garbage cans, next to the Sunbeam. He grabbed it and darted back across the street, returning to his post behind the tree.
P.J. came down the path from the house, sipping a glass of iced lemonade. She was dressed for the chore of moving storage bins, and Darby knew he couldn’t have picked a better time or place. Her assistant, chef, and maid would have parked on the street in front of the house, but their cars were gone. Darby guessed she had let them go home so she could move her dolls into the house without being questioned.
He waited for her to lift a storage bin and stand up before he stepped out from behind the tree and clicked the garage door opener.
Before she could react, the garage door descended.
P.J. was trapped inside.
59
Caresse regretted that she hadn’t found time to talk to Anthony on Friday before he left work for the day. She had seen Nibbles, Bree, and Rhea packing up their desks, so she knew big changes were at hand, but when she tried to talk to the trio, Nibbles gave her the finger and Rhea told her to fuck off.
Now it was Saturday, and her mind wandered to Monya and how she’d told her that her sister Sophie had started a Barbie magazine before Sierra had. If Sierra was the killer and she was taken out of the picture, Sophie might consider filling the void left by Sierra’s absence by getting back into the Barbie magazine scene. At the very least, she might take malicious delight in the fact that the woman who had trumped her in business so long ago was headed for a fall.
60
P.J. stood in the dark garage, holding the set of storage drawers in her chilly hands.
She didn’t understand why the garage door had closed by itself. Had it malfunctioned? She put down the storage unit and stepped sideways, sending her glass of lemonade crashing down from where she’d set it.
“Damn it!”
Slowly, she picked her way through the shadows, up to the front of the garage where the opener would be. She felt around on the shelf. It was bare.
She had a garage door opener on her key chain, but she’d left her keys on the kitchen counter, next to the juicer and five squeezed lemons.
Kneeling down on the cold concrete, she searched the floor beneath the shelf. Nothing.
She moved the garbage cans and searched behind them.
The flap-style lids on the garbage cans were snapped shut, but she lifted the lids anyway and searched through the trash to see if the opener might be there.
Dumbfounded, she sat down on the garage floor.
Darby.
* * *
Across the street, Darby waited ten minutes, listening to the quiet neighborhood. The birds weren’t singing. No dogs barked. The children all played elsewhere.
Nice to live in an exclusive neighborhood where the homes are an acre apart, Darby thought as he walked back to his car. There’s no one to bother you in your own precious, perfect world. But no one sticking his or her nose in your business might be a bad thing at this particular moment, at least for one deeply troubled blonde.
He had it all worked out.
Since P.J. relied on him for computer assistance, he had access to all her logins and passwords. He had contact information for everyone she worked with, the staff—everyone she knew. He would call everyone scheduled to be there in the coming days and relay the message that she had decided to go out of town and that they would not be needed until she told them to come in and that she would get in touch when she returned. Darby would also check to see how long Heath would be gone. It was not uncommon for him to be away for weeks at a time.
There would be no one to check on P.J., no one would worry about her.
She had a glass of lemonade, so that would hold her for a day or two. But if a week to ten days passed and no one came to rescue her, she would expire from lack of food and water.
And he would be free.
On Monday at 8:10 a.m., the newsroom was empty. A note on Caresse’s desk told her to come to the cafeteria for a staff meeting. She headed down the hallway, through the kitchen where everyone made their coffee, and into the cafeteria, where the staff had assembled.
Everyone she worked with every day was there, with the exception of Bree, Rhea, and Nibbles. Anthony Price stood near the glass wall that overlooked the patio. Seth and Ann sat at a lunchroom table in the center of the room. Marilyn from Classified sat beside Lobby Laura and Pressroom Skip at a table in the far right corner of the room.
It seemed Caresse was late, or at least the last one there. Ducking her head slightly, she made her way to Marilyn’s table.
Seth stood up and moved to the window. He stood next to Anthony. His round-lensed glasses picked up reflections from the patio, which sparkled in the almost-springtime sunlight.
“Glad you all could make it,” Seth said dryly.
Everyone turned in Caresse’s direction and laughed.
“This meeting is being held to issue one award, one announcement, and two interoffice promotions. So we’ll start with the award.”
He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “The best feature award for February goes to someone who seldom gets the opportunity to express herself. Her days are typically spent dealing with funeral directors, brides-to-be, event planners, and church officials. She answers the phone—even though she hates to—” Seth paused and got the laugh he expected. “And she takes care of all of us, every day. Luckily for us, she also just happened to write the best dating story this newspaper has ever printed. By now I imagine you all know I’m talking about Caresse, so without further ado, the best feature award for February goes to Ms. Redd for her personal ads dating story. Caresse, come on up.”