“I know.”
“I just heard two cops talking, saying there were closets full. And cash.”
“I know. McPeel told me some of it.”
“How is it you always manage to get cops to talk to you? He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
He shrugged and unlocked his car. When he asked if I was up to some lunch at Pedro’s, of course I was.
“Livingston was squawking about how it was all his stuff, how he’d paid for everything in the apartment.”
“Well, technically, he did. He just paid a whole lot less than it was worth.”
“But … he’ll probably get off. Can they make the charges stick?”
“It’ll be complicated.”
We arrived at Pedro’s where I ordered my usual—chicken enchiladas with green chile and sour cream. Ron got the beef burrito. We’re so predictable.
“So. Does this mean we’re done with the Lorrentos? Police have the guy. Case closed?”
He took his time over the chips and salsa. “I’ll have to write up a final report for Marcie. Technically, she’s the client. I could do it this afternoon and then, yeah, I guess we’re pretty much done with them.”
“I’m sensing a but …”
“But, nothing really. I’m just curious about a few things. I might do a little follow-up. See if I can piece together a whole picture.”
“A little lecture to Marcie on choosing the wrong guy to fool around with?”
“Well, she wasn’t too smart about it, was she?”
I didn’t think cheating was ever a good idea, but our food arrived at that moment and I got a little too busy to talk about it.
My phone rang as I was about to pour honey into the middle of my sopapilla. When I saw it was Drake, I wiped the oil off my fingers and took the call.
“Hey there,” he said. “I’m on my way back from the job and was thinking about an early dinner at Pedro’s.”
“Ooh, a little late for that decision. But I’ll bring home whatever you want.” I felt badly that our timing hadn’t worked out a little better, but I soon had a takeout box of enchiladas for him and was on my way home.
It felt good to have wrapped up the Lorrento case, but I felt an unease about the Delaney twins. Clover’s admission yesterday bothered me. I just couldn’t put my finger on what to do about it.
Chapter 45
The next morning, Drake offered to help me finalize my new car purchase. I’d accessed the inventory online for the local dealership, chosen the Jeep I wanted and was now ready to talk deals. Well, okay, I wasn’t really ready to dicker with them, but with Drake at my side I figured we could get through it. We fortified ourselves with a decent breakfast at CeeCee’s and strode onto the car lot, full of confidence.
Two hours and a chunk of money later, I drove away in my new black Renegade. It wasn’t nearly as flashy as the red Corvette, but I liked the sort of ninja feel. Plus, it would be a whole lot more practical as we got closer to owning mountain property. Weekend gear and Freckles would fit right in, a fact that was a big plus.
Life settled down for a couple of days. Drake was handling details on our purchase of the tiny mountain cabin. While I was at the office this morning, he planned to meet a surveyor up there to establish the property lines. I’d hoped to run into Clover and take her to lunch as a thanks for the loan of her sister’s car, but I hadn’t seen her around. I should call—her cell number was right there in Zayne’s phone. I’d missed an easy opportunity to return it the night Clover passed out, so putting it back in their house in some sneaky manner was another item on my to-do list.
I called Donna Delaney and updated her with what I’d learned from Buddy, the tech guy from Innocent Times. She agreed that her nieces were probably pulling some scam on the parents.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about this. My guess is Zayne has gone away with a guy, and it’s probably someone she doesn’t want Rick and Jane to know about,” I said. “Clover is covering for her and has become very upset each time I’ve brought it up. I’ll get in touch with Clover and try again.”
I didn’t want to lose the girl’s trust, but the only way to get straight answers might be to present her with what I knew about the phone calls and texts.
“Whatever you think, Charlie. I’m sure it’s all right.” Donna hesitated a moment. “It’s just … I don’t have unlimited money to spend investigating.”
I assured her I wasn’t going to send a whopping invoice for my time. I’d just hung up the phone when I heard Ron’s booted feet clomping up the stairs. He peered in at my doorway.
“I just had lunch with a most interesting man,” he said.
“And here I thought you were completely devoted to Victoria.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why else would I have such a dweeb little sister, if not to make fun of me and twist my words.” He started to turn away but I called him back.
“Tell me about the lunch. I’m guessing this is a client?”
“A lead. I’m tying up loose ends on the Lorrento case and I happened across an old buddy of Jay Livingston’s from his high school days. I followed the friend-of-a-friend thread on Facebook and came up with Larry Vaso.”
He came into my office, sat on the sofa and took the end of a tug-toy Freckles brought to him.
“Larry told me Jay has been a con man since his earliest days. His dad used to fascinate the boys with stories of ways to make a quick buck by tricking people. They would laugh over his antics but, when Larry would go home and relate some hilarious episode to his own family over the dinner table, he’d get a stern lecture about right and wrong. He says he tried talking to Jay about it, but Jay just laughed it off.”
Freckles gave up tugging with Ron and went to chew quietly on a rubber bone.
“The Livingstons acted as if they were rich, Larry told me. They lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, and Jay’s dad had a new car every year. Larry said it was hard for him to understand—if his friend’s dad was a crook, how did he become so successful. His own father kept telling him it would all come crashing down someday.”
“Well, Jay certainly wasn’t living the high life when we found him,” I said.
“No, and I guess that’s where the rest of the story comes in. The senior Livingston did eventually crash and burn. The boys were off to college by then. Jay had a flashy car and a high-limit credit card, and he didn’t take his studies seriously at all. He spent his time making money by selling fake term papers. Apparently, once, he sold a master’s thesis for thousands of dollars and it turned out he’d blatantly stolen it from the archives at another college.
“Back at home, the old man pulled a jewelry job—I’m guessing something like what Jay’s in trouble for now—and got caught. The whole house of cards came tumbling down when it turned out everything he owned was either mortgaged, rented or stolen. He showed up at his son’s dorm room, begging a place to hide out from the police.”
I felt my eyes go wide. Holy cow.
“This is where it gets interesting.”
It wasn’t interesting enough already?
“Larry and Jay watched his dad get hauled off to prison. For Larry, it validated everything his father had told him for years. He knew he would stick to the honest way of doing things, and never again would he believe in someone else’s appearances.”
“Jay obviously didn’t mend his ways, though.”
“Larry said Jay just got weirder and weirder. He didn’t stop scamming people. The liar’s mindset was deeply ingrained. But instead of spending his gains on a showy lifestyle, he started to hoard all of it. The cash, the jewelry—by the time the police caught him this week, he had trunks and boxes full of it.”
I remembered Detective McPeel’s comment about the tip of the iceberg.
“Yeah,” Ron said, “that crappy apartment where he lived held several million dollars worth of stuff.”
“Wasn’t he afraid of being robbed?”
“He wasn’t foolish. He’d rig
ged up the most sophisticated alarm system I’ve ever heard of, and not the kind that calls the police. The kind that traps the intruder. Without his codes, walking into that place could get you hit with a Taser or shot.”
“Seriously? Rigging something like that is illegal, isn’t it?”
He gave me a patient stare. “Pretty much everything Livingston did was illegal.”
Well, true. From stealing jewelry and borrowing other people’s houses, to sleeping with married women, his life consisted of unethical and illegal activities. I pondered the impact parents have on their children, and it was fairly mind-boggling. I felt a sense of relief I’d never had kids of my own.
I must have remained lost in that pensive mood quite awhile; when I looked up again, Ron had left the room. Maybe he was thinking of the extra time and attention he needed to give his own boys, especially as they approached their teens.
Chapter 46
Bringing my mind back to the other young people in my life at the moment, I promised myself I’d try to have a heart-to-heart with Clover when I got home. Ron had gone back into his own office, Sally had left for the day, so I couldn’t see much reason I shouldn’t head home and try to catch up with my young neighbor. I called out to my canine companion and the two of us headed for the back door.
My new Jeep would provide the excuse for a knock at Clover’s door. She, after all, had been the one to send me looking at a similar vehicle to my old one. I started it and began the drive home.
What I should be doing was to return Zayne’s phone. My data expert had extracted what we needed from it and there was really no excuse to keep it. A guilty pang shot through me. Here I’d been making judgments about Jay Livingston’s dishonesty, and look what I’d done. Yes, I could justify my little thievery all sorts of ways, but it was time I came clean and gave it back.
I turned onto my street, automatically glancing toward the Delaney’s house. Sure enough, both Corvettes sat in their driveway. From the front yard next to mine, Elsa looked up. No one can convince me all old people have failing eyesight. She spotted me behind the wheel of the Renegade and began waving madly. I pulled to the curb in front of her house.
“Wow, Charlie,” she said. “Drake told me you got your new wheels today. I like it!”
She eyed the vehicle from all angles.
“We’ll have to plan a demo ride pretty soon,” I told her. “I was on my way to the Delaney’s to return a, uh, borrowed item.”
She gave me the grandmother look, the one I used to get when I fudged the truth as a teen.
“I talked to Donna earlier. She still wants me working on the case.”
“Well, I should hope so. We still don’t know where Zayne is.”
I filled her in on my theory that Zayne got a new boyfriend and went away somewhere. “Donna thinks that’s probably the case, but I’d still like to verify a few things with Clover. So, can we do a rain check on the car ride?”
“Sure thing. Oh, did I tell you my lettuce out in the garden is already producing bunches? I need to pick and bring you some.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I could do it now, if—”
A car took the corner a bit too fast and veered toward my rear end as it sped up the street, grabbing our attention. Elsa actually took a few steps away. I gripped my steering wheel, but the car narrowly missed mine.
He swerved to the right side of the street and came to an abrupt halt in front of the Delaney place, sending out a long blare of his horn. I recognized the car as Ryan Subro’s white BMW.
“Rude,” Elsa said. “In my day—”
I’d heard it a million times. In her day a young man would never sit at the curb and honk for his date.
Date?
A warning shiver went through me. Surely Clover wasn’t dating Ryan now. Not after what she’d told me at the cabin about his behavior toward her sister. I kept my eyes on the house and, sure enough, Clover came out. She leaned toward the open passenger window and the two exchanged some words. I tried but I couldn’t tell what they were saying, even with my side windows down.
Clover didn’t seem happy to see him, but whatever he said convinced her to get into the car with him. I didn’t like the looks of this.
“Gram, I gotta go.”
I followed the BMW to the end of the block, mimicking his turns, tracking him out of the neighborhood. Ryan and Clover seemed to be having an intense discussion inside the car. He rarely looked at his rearview mirrors and, despite the fact I wasn’t being terribly subtle at tailing him, he didn’t seem to realize I was behind.
At Rio Grande Boulevard, he took the ramp onto eastbound I-40. I stayed within a half mile all the way, letting traffic and the Albuquerque drivers’ penchant for filling the smallest available space keep me from becoming too obvious to Ryan. From Clover’s admission that this guy had been bullying her sister, I worried that he was now trying the same thing with her. Of the two girls, I would have picked Zayne as the more assertive. If Ryan Subro intimidated her into doing things she didn’t want to, I worried about Clover’s ability to fend him off.
In a series of moves eerily similar to the drive I’d taken the other day with Clover, Subro drove through the city, entered Tijeras Canyon, and exited at Cedar Crest, following the same route north on Highway 14. A number of cars came the same direction—it was, after all, a fairly populated area—but eventually they had all turned off the highway to smaller roads and driveways, until I was the only one behind the Beemer. When he made the turn onto Sandia Crest Road, I followed. That’s when he must have spotted me.
He sped up and began taking the turns faster and faster. The low-slung sports car could handle it. In my new SUV I wasn’t so daring. Within a couple minutes I was only catching occasional glimpses of him ahead. I spoke up for the hands-free phone to activate.
“Call Drake,” I commanded. A reassuring ring tone sounded over the speakers.
“Are you still near the cabin?” I asked.
“Just pulling pitch to head home.”
“I need you to detour. I’m following a white BMW convertible up the road toward Sandia Peak and he’s getting ahead of me. He might be headed for one of the picnic areas or for the top—I don’t know.”
“I’ll stay overhead and let you know.” Bless my dear husband for being able to read the situation and react.
I dropped my speed slightly. It wasn’t worth taking chances in a vehicle I was still getting familiar with. If I didn’t see the BMW at one of the few turnoffs, I’d stay the course and let Drake tell me where it stopped. We kept the phone connection open, although noise from the rotor blades and turbine engine made casual conversation impossible.
Within minutes, I heard the helicopter overhead. I wondered if Ryan would notice, but since it was not a law enforcement aircraft I doubted he would think anything of it, even if he spotted it above. I kept my eyes on the winding road where switchbacks occasionally gave glimpses of the white car, although I couldn’t see well enough to know if either person inside was looking back toward me.
The ride seemed interminable. I would swear it never used to take this long, but the perception was surely my own impatience, along with nerves over what would happen when I caught up. We passed the turnoff to the lower ski area terminus. The winter season was well over now, and there was no sign of activity. Large patches of dirty snow and black mud provided the only evidence there’d been a ski season at all in recent months.
Drake’s voice came over the phone line again. I couldn’t make out the words and asked him to repeat.
“The car is—”
The line went dead, the connection lost.
Chapter 47
I tapped the redial button, slowing to concentrate on the tight curves in the road. For a moment, I thought we’d reconnected but the crackle cut off immediately. I backed off my accelerator and began watching every possible wide spot where the car might have turned.
It appeared suddenly when I rounded a bend. The BMW was parked in a designated s
pace where one of the many trailheads began. Hiking?
Could I have misread Clover’s body language when she approached Ryan’s car? I pictured the exchange between them. Clover was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sandals. She knew this side of the mountain, at this altitude, would have patches of snow for a few weeks yet. There was no way she’d planned on hiking.
Surely she was up here against her will.
I parked, blocking his car from leaving, and tried to think what to do. I saw no sign of them and wondered if Ryan was armed. I didn’t have my pistol with me, not that I would use it other than for self defense anyway. But it could have made a good intimidation tool to get him to let her go. I rummaged in my purse for another idea.
Zayne’s cell phone. I’d intended to return it, but what if I could use it as a distraction? I tapped into the contacts list and found Clover’s name. When it began to ring, I heard a very faint riff of rock music from the woods ahead. The two were much closer than I’d imagined. The music continued to sound in the distance. Then it quit.
I whispered to Freckles to stay in the car and be a good girl. Grabbing my jacket from the back seat and closing the door with the softest possible click, I tapped the number again. Surely, Clover would see Zayne’s name on the screen and know this was her chance to speak to someone who would summon help.
The music chimed again, this time a bit farther away.
Pick up, pick up, I pleaded silently.
“Hello?” came a tentative voice.
“Clover, it’s Charlie.” I kept my voice to a whisper. “Pretend it really is Zayne calling. Carry on conversation and let me ask you some questions.”
“I can’t …” she wailed.
“Yes, you can. Just pretend.” Dammit, girl. You’re good at pretending.
“I—”
There was a scuffle. “Who’s this?” demanded a male voice.
Alibis Can Be Murder Page 21