Despite his best efforts, Williams had failed to unearth any more information about her life or history since his interview with her landlord in LA. He could find nothing on her family, her employment history, her education. Haddon Defoe claimed she worked for a drug charity in New York, but no one Williams had spoken to in that community seemed to have heard of her. The woman was a ghost.
‘You did meet her then?’ he asked Kevin.
The nurse nodded. ‘A few times. She came to the hospital quite a lot. They’d have lunch together right here.’ He waved an arm around the still empty cafeteria. ‘That was the weird part. They never made a secret of it. I think that was what bugged Dr Defoe the most. He and Doc Roberts were fighting a lot before the accident, and I’m pretty sure it was about her. Lenka, that was her name,’ he added, pleased with himself for dredging it up.
‘How did Doug Roberts and Lenka meet?’ Williams asked.
Kevin thought for a moment. ‘In New York, I think? I’m not sure. Some charity thing. Dr Roberts had a rehab clinic …’
‘I know,’ Williams cut him off. ‘Do you know what she did for a living?’
‘No.’ Kevin looked worried, sensing that his ‘hundreds of dollars’ might be slipping away. ‘But I know she was rich. Maybe that was one of the attractions, I don’t know. But she always wore this watch, one of those platinum ones with diamonds round the face. Chopard!’ he said, happy again to have come up with a name, although it was clear from Williams’ expression it meant nothing to him. ‘Those things are like fifteen, twenty thousand dollars a pop,’ Kevin explained. ‘And she carried a Hermès pocketbook, and one time she came in wearing an incredible sable jacket, I think it was like a Fendi or something? I remember that because Dr Roberts had a fight with her about it. I actually remember that really well, because he said something strange.’
‘What was that?’ asked Williams.
‘He said, “Either you want to escape or you don’t. Never wear that around me again!” He was really mad.’
‘How did she react?’ Williams asked, curious.
‘She cried,’ said Kevin, matter-of-factly. ‘And then he backed down, like he always did. He could never resist a damsel in distress.’
‘He had other girlfriends?’ Williams suggested.
Kevin shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. No. Before Lenka came along he was totally into his wife. But you know, she was a doctor too, super capable. I don’t think she needed him the way the Russian girl did. You know?’
Williams nodded, writing something in his notebook.
‘I also heard she was friends with some bad people,’ said Kevin, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Powerful people.’
‘What people?’ Williams frowned.
‘Don’t know,’ said Kevin. ‘And I don’t know if Doug Roberts was mixed up in that either. I’m not saying he was. But supposedly her friends had influence at City Hall. Awarding contracts, stuff like that. I heard some of the other surgeons talking about it.’
Williams looked skeptical.
‘OK, Kevin,’ he said, getting to his feet. Reaching into his wallet he put two hundred-dollar bills down on the table. ‘Thank you for your time.’
‘Two hundred? That’s it?’ The nurse failed to hide his disappointment or his desperation as he grabbed the cash and stuffed it into the pocket of his scrubs.
Williams shrugged. ‘You haven’t given me much, son. The name of her watchmaker and some vague rumors about City Hall?’
‘They’re not vague rumors!’ Kevin protested, standing up himself. ‘I have a contact there, someone who can tell you more. A lot more.’
Williams hesitated. ‘Who?’
Kevin sat back down. ‘I’ll need another three hundred for the name.’
Williams turned to leave.
‘Two hundred!’ Kevin called after him. ‘She can help you, Mr Williams. I know she can help you.’
Extracting another two notes, Williams sat back down and placed them on the table. Kevin reached forward eagerly, but Williams covered the money with his hand.
‘I want the name. The address. And the cell phone number,’ he said slowly. ‘And this had better be worth my time, son.’
It turned out Kevin Voss hadn’t been entirely straight with him.
Adrienne Washington did not work at City Hall. She was fired six months ago from her junior secretarial job in the Mayor’s Office, and now worked as a part-time PA to a tech entrepreneur downtown.
‘Best thing that ever happened to me, losing that job,’ she told Williams, over lunch at an overpriced sushi place off of Figueroa. ‘I mean it was awful at the time. Awful. So humiliating. But if I hadn’t left the Mayor, I would never have found Michael, and he is like the nicest boss ever. Of all time. Plus the salary is like, double.’
A number of things struck Williams as he listened to Adrienne ramble enthusiastically on. The first was that she was blessed with beauty – long legs, a narrow waist and a mane of thick, red hair that gave her a look of Disney’s Little Mermaid – but not brains. It was pretty clear to Williams on what basis both the Mayor and the tech entrepreneur had hired her. The second was, encouragingly, she was also wildly indiscreet.
‘At first I thought Mayor Fuentes fired me because I wouldn’t sleep with him,’ she told Williams cheerfully, slurping down her sugary cocktail noisily through a straw. ‘I mean, the man was all hands, if you know what I’m saying, and he’s also, like, fifty years old, not to mention, like, married.’
Every third word was delivered with painful overemphasis, and ‘likes’ peppered her conversation like bullets. Williams would have fired her for that alone. It was like listening to a doll where you pull a string and she says something inane, only one day the string broke and the loop got stuck on repeat, endlessly.
‘But then later I realized that, like, maybe it was because of what I knew.’
‘And what was that, Adrienne?’
‘That the Mayor was taking money from the Russians,’ she said, in the same tone she might use to make a comment about the weather. ‘Bribes and whatnot. Like, I heard my boss, Mrs Drayton, talking on the phone about it? I think it was, like, to a reporter?’
‘Are you sure about this, sweetheart?’ Williams asked kindly. ‘That’s a big accusation to make. And I’ve never read anything about the Mayor being involved in corruption.’
‘Oh, I’m not accusing anyone!’ Adrienne said, apparently genuinely surprised. ‘I’m simply telling you what I heard. Just like I told Mayor Fuentes what I heard. And next thing I know, boom, I get fired. So that’s why I’m thinking it was, like, probably that? And not the sex thing? Also, they fired Mrs D, and I don’t mean to be catty or anything, but I’d be willing to make you a bet Mayor Fuentes wasn’t trying to get her into bed. Now, my new boss, Michael, when I told him, he was like …’
It took Williams twenty minutes to get out of there, once he’d established to his satisfaction that Adrienne Washington knew nothing more about these mysterious Russians supposedly in cahoots with the Mayor, and nothing at all about Lenka Gordievski.
It took him another four hours to track down Tina Drayton, Adrienne’s old boss at a run-down apartment in West Hollywood.
‘Yes?’
She opened the door to him less than an inch. Three strong steel chains locked into place across the opening, and Williams could only see a section of her face on the other side. It was enough to reveal an exhausted and frightened middle-aged woman, barricaded inside a home where she clearly no longer felt safe.
‘My name is Derek Williams, Mrs Drayton. I’m a private investigator. May I come in?’
After the briefest hesitation, Tina shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not a good time.’
She was about to shut the door when Williams interrupted her. ‘I got your name from Adrienne Washington. She was worried about you.’
‘Adrienne?’ Tina’s eyes widened. ‘That stupid girl! Will she never learn to keep her mouth shut? I’m actually very fond o
f her, but she doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time, Mr … I’m sorry, I forgot your name.’
‘Williams.’ Pulling out a card, he passed it to her between the chains. ‘But please call me Derek. I understand your hesitation, ma’am. And I agree with you about Adrienne. I think, unwittingly, she may be putting herself in danger. I’d really like to talk to you, Mrs Drayton. Only for a few minutes.’
Tina hesitated again. But this time she relented. ‘Hang on.’
The door closed, and Williams heard each of the chains being removed one by one, before it reopened.
‘You’d better come in,’ the Mayor’s ex-secretary sighed heavily. ‘And please call me Tina. I don’t have long to talk though I’m afraid. I’m moving again today. You say you’re a private investigator, Derek?’
‘That’s right.’
Williams followed her into the dingy sitting room. Taking a seat in an armchair still covered in plastic wrapping, it was immediately obvious that this was temporary accommodation, and not Tina’s’s home. There were no photographs or personal items anywhere, not even a cushion or a throw rug to warm the place up.
‘May I ask who you’re working for?’ said Tina, sitting opposite him.
‘I never reveal my client’s names,’ Williams explained. ‘Confidentiality is kind of a prerequisite in my business. But I will say that I’m working for a woman, a person of integrity, who may be a victim of some of the same people you fell foul of at City Hall. My client wants answers, Tina, that’s all. Just like you.’
Tina rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t want answers, Derek. I want my life back.’
Although Adrienne was right to imply the older woman was no sex object, by Williams’ lights Tina Drayton was an attractive woman for her age. Not ‘pretty’ perhaps, especially not in her current, washed-out, nervous state and dressed in an unflattering skirt and sweater. But there was an intelligence and spiritedness about her that Williams admired, a sort of confidence that, in other circumstances, might have been fun to be around.
‘Do you move a lot?’ Williams asked, already knowing the answer.
‘I do now,’ Tina sounded resigned. ‘It’s not safe to stay in one place too long.’
‘That must be exhausting. And expensive,’ he said, treading carefully. ‘My client would be happy to pay you for any information you might have that could help us.’
Tina waved a hand dismissively. ‘Thank you, Derek, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting payment simply for telling the truth. You seem like a nice man, and I daresay your client is trustworthy.’
‘She is.’
‘But I doubt either of you know what you’re getting into,’ Tina added. ‘If we are dealing with the same people—’
‘The Russians,’ Williams interrupted her.
That simple word alone was enough to make the blood drain from Tina’s face.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘then you should tell your client to walk away.’
Williams thought about Nikki and smiled. ‘I don’t think she’d take that advice. Not from me, anyway. She’s tenacious.’
‘This isn’t a game,’ Tina said, becoming agitated. ‘People have died. The reporter I spoke to, at the LA Times? Robin Sanford? He’s dead now.’
Williams started taking notes.
‘They said it was a heart attack, but there was nothing wrong with Robin’s heart. He was thirty-three years old and fit as a fiddle.’
‘People are still dying, Tina,’ said Williams. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
He talked to her about the slayings of Lisa Flannagan and Trey Raymond, and their links to Nikki Roberts and her husband Doug. About the Roberts’ involvement in drug addiction charities, and the wars between Mexican and Russian dealers for supremacy on the streets of LA.
‘Doug Roberts died last year, in an “accident”, alongside a Russian woman who may have been involved with the people you say were bribing Mayor Fuentes.’
Tina raised a hand. ‘Bribing? Is that what Adrienne told you?’
Williams nodded.
‘My God.’ Tina shook her head. ‘That child is going to get herself killed one of these days. And the irony is, she knows nothing. She’s too stupid to understand any of this.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Williams. ‘I kind of got that impression.’
‘All right, so firstly, I don’t know if Fuentes personally was being bribed. I never said that. All I know is that he was being paid, or at least someone was being paid, via his accounts at City Hall. I’m talking large sums of money, and it was coming from the Russians.’
Williams was still writing. ‘How large, and which Russians?’
‘The amounts varied each time,’ said Tina. ‘Five hundred thousand, a hundred and fifty thousand. One was for over a million dollars. Every four to six weeks a new check would arrive. Perhaps it was three million in total. Or more, I don’t know.’
‘And the Russians making the payments. Do you have names?’
‘No.’ She looked down. Williams could smell the fear on her skin.
‘A description, then. Did you ever see any of them in person?’
She shook her head, biting her lower lip. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’
‘You must have taken phone calls at least,’ Williams pressed her. ‘Are we talking men or women? Two or twenty?’
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Does the name Lenka Gordievski mean anything to you? This lady?’ Getting up, Williams waved his iPhone in front of her frightened face. Despite herself, Tina looked at the image, the same one Williams had shown Haddon Defoe of Lenka, Haddon and Doug Roberts at the New York fundraiser, the night Lenka and Doug first met. The recognition in Tina’s eyes was obvious and instant.
‘I cannot talk about this, Derek. I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much.’
‘Give me a company name, at least. Something I don’t already know, one piece of this puzzle. Please, Tina. Tell me what you told Robin Sanford.’
Jerking her head up, she looked him square in the eye. ‘They’ll kill me!’
Williams held her gaze in silence for a few moments. Then he said quietly:
‘Maybe they will. Maybe they’ll kill both of us. But what if they’re out there, killing other, innocent people right now, just to keep whatever this is a secret? Isn’t the only way to be rid of them to uncover that secret? To bring it out in the open? You must have believed that when you called Sanford in the first place.’
‘I did,’ Tina acknowledged. In her lap, her hands trembled.
‘I know you’re scared, Tina. I’m scared too. But if we don’t speak up, who will?’
Derek Williams watched the inner battle raging inside the poor woman opposite him. Tina Drayton was a brave person. She’d already proved that. But everybody had their limits.
‘All right,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll tell you. But after I do you must never contact me again. Never. Not for any reason.’
Williams sat down and pulled out his pen again. ‘You have my word.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Gretchen Adler eased herself down into the warm water and felt the tensions of her day and the long drive downtown melt away.
Gretchen and Nikki had discovered Lucky Hot Springs in their senior year of High School and had been coming to the women-only, strictly naked Korean spa for girls’ bonding sessions ever since. As teenagers, back when both their bodies were perfect, the whole ‘naked’ thing had felt weird and embarrassing. Now, in middle age and with pretty much everything sagging more than she would have liked, Gretchen couldn’t care less about taking her clothes off, or about the other women and girls, from aged two to ninety-two, lazily wandering past her in the buff.
In fact, stepping into the naturally heated water as naked as God intended felt incredibly freeing, and one of the many reasons Gretchen Adler loved this place. It didn’t matter to Gretchen that Nikki’s body seemed to have stood the test of time far better than her own. Nikki with her cellulit
e-free thighs and small, pert breasts that bobbed like two apples on the surface of the water above a stomach so flat and taut you could have used it as a trampoline. Gretchen’s own breasts were more like two sandbags, instantly submerging like a ship’s ballast, and her belly was more stretchmark than skin at this point, courtesy of her three kids. But really, who cared? She was thirty-eight, and happily married to a very successful producer. Unlike lonely, widowed Nikki, who in recent years had seen her life lurch from one tragedy to the next, poor thing.
Sliding into the hot pool beside Gretchen, Nikki kicked off the girls’ gossip session with a bombshell.
‘Haddon Defoe tried to sleep with me the other day.’
Gretchen’s jaw dropped open, cartoon style. ‘Whaaat?? He did not!’
‘He did,’ said Nikki. ‘It was at the End Addiction Ball. We were outside, and he was comforting me about Doug and then, I don’t know,’ she shrugged, ‘suddenly he was kissing me and declaring his love, telling me how Doug never deserved me. He was kind of forceful.’
‘Do we like “kind of forceful”?’ Gretchen asked, astonished. She’d known Haddon Defoe for almost a decade, through Nikki and Doug, and was having immense difficulty picturing the scene Nikki described.
‘Not from Haddon we don’t!’ Nikki blushed. ‘I mean … Haddon. I had no idea.’
‘Why would you?’ said Gretchen.
‘And obviously I could never. I’m not remotely attracted to him for one thing, but even if I was, he was like a brother to Doug. That would be too weird.’
‘Biblical,’ Gretchen agreed. ‘Like in the Old Testament, when people die and the widows marry the brother? It’s a thing!’ she added defensively, seeing Nikki’s baffled face.
‘The truth is, I’m nowhere near ready to be with someone new,’ said Nikki, dipping her whole head under the water and then rising up again, her hair sleek like an otter’s. ‘I’m not sure I ever will be.’
Sidney Sheldon's the Silent Widow Page 28