by Jance, J. A.
“The father’s death was ruled a suicide. Did he leave a note?” Ali asked.
“No note. According to his friends, he was despondent after his wife’s death.”
“How did he die?”
“Got himself good and drunk, then he put a plastic bag over his head. It happened on a Sunday night. Ermina was evidently home at the time. She got up the next morning and went to school. When Sam didn’t show up for work at his office that day and when he didn’t answer the phone, his secretary stopped by to check. She’s the one who found him.
“I personally went to the high school to let Ermina know what had happened. Called her out of her English class and took her to the guidance counselor’s office to give her the bad news. ‘Oh,’ she says just as calm as can be when I told her. ‘If he’s dead, what’s going to happen to me?’ Her reaction was totally out of kilter—as though I’d just given her a weather report for the next week.”
“What did happen to her?” Ali asked.
“Social services put her in a foster home for a while, but she ran away. As far as I know, she was her parents’ only heir. I know she received some money from their estates when she reached her majority, but I don’t know how much it was. Sam Cunningham was a well-respected attorney in town here. I suspect she picked up a fair piece of change.”
“I take it Stuart Ramey had to do some digging to come up with this,” Ali said.
“Ermina was never officially charged in relation to Cunningham’s death,” Laughlin said. “It happened a long time ago, but there are still enough people in town who are upset about what happened to him. One of them called to let me know that High Noon was making inquiries about Ermina Cunningham. I took it upon myself to call him back. Can you tell me what this is all about?”
“On Friday a friend named Brenda Riley sent me an e-mail asking me for help doing a background check on Ermina Cunningham Blaylock. Brenda disappeared shortly after sending that e-mail and she hasn’t been heard from since.”
“If your friend got crosswise with Ermina Cunningham,” Jim Laughlin said, “you have good reason to be worried. And if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. I still have a score to settle with that girl.”
Ali was still thinking about that disturbing phone call a few minutes later when her phone rang again.
“The dogs and I are downstairs waiting,” Maddy Watkins said. “Care to join us?”
“Yes,” Ali said. “A brisk walk on the beach is just what the doctor ordered.”
32
Sacramento, California
When Gil parked in front of Camilla Gastellum’s house on P Street in the early evening, it looked as though he had made the trip for nothing. The house was dark. There was no flickering glow from a television set. Having come this far, however, he refused to give up without at least ringing the doorbell.
Once on the porch, though, he thought he heard the sound of classical music coming from somewhere inside the house. He found the doorbell and rang it. Moments later he heard a faint shuffle of footsteps approaching the front door. Two lights snapped on—one in the entryway and one on the porch. The door cracked open as far as the end of a brass security chain.
As far as Gil was concerned, those security chains were worse than useless. They gave the homeowner a false sense of security. If a bad guy wanted to get inside, he would.
“Who’s there?” a woman asked.
“My name is Detective Gilbert Morris,” he said, holding his ID wallet up to what he assumed was eye level. “I’m looking for Camilla Gastellum. It’s about her daughter.”
The security chain was disengaged with a snap, the door thrown open. A gray-haired woman, dressed in a robe and nightgown, stood exposed in the doorway. The way Camilla Gastellum squinted as she looked up at him made him think she couldn’t see very well.
“Don’t tell me!” she exclaimed. “Have you found Brenda? Is she all right? Come in. Please.”
She stepped back and motioned Gil into the house. “Are you saying your daughter is missing?”
“Well, of course she’s missing. She left on Friday morning and never came back. I’ve been trying since Friday night to get someone to take a missing persons report. The last person I talked to told me that since Brenda’s an adult, she doesn’t have to tell me where she’s going. I thought that was why you were here—that you had found her. Where did you say you’re from again?”
The fact that Brenda had disappeared the morning of Richard Lowensdale’s murder caused a rush of excitement to course through Gil’s veins, but he didn’t let on.
“Grass Valley,” Gil said noncommittally. “I’m with the Investigations Unit of the Grass Valley Police Department.”
“Oh, no,” Camilla said with a sigh. “Not again.”
Using both hands, she reattached the security chain, then she led the way into the house, turning on lights as she went. In a room that seemed more like a parlor than a real living room, she motioned him onto an old-fashioned and exceedingly uncomfortable horsehair couch while she settled in an wooden-armed easy chair. The source of the music was a CD player, which she muted by clicking a remote.
“When I’m here by myself, I generally sit in the dark and listen to music,” she explained. “I have macular degeneration. Sitting in the dark helps keep me from thinking about how much I can’t see. So tell me,” she added, sounding resigned, “what kind of trouble is Brenda in this time?”
“What can you tell me about Richard Lowensdale, Mrs. Gastellum?” Gil asked.
“Please,” she said, “call me Camilla. Richard and Brenda were supposedly engaged for a time, but he never actually gave her a ring. It turned out that he had other girlfriends—several other girlfriends. She found that out this past October.”
“That would be when she allegedly broke into his house?” Gil asked.
“She didn’t ‘allegedly’ break into his house,” Camilla said. “She really broke into his house. She started working on her book right after that—a book about something called cyberstalking. I don’t know much about it, but she claims that’s what Richard has been doing. And what he did to her personally really hurt her,” Camilla added. “She sort of went off the deep end for a while, but I thought she was finally pulling out of it. You know, that she was starting to recover. At least that’s what I was hoping. But you still haven’t told me what this is all about, Mr. . . .”
“Morris,” he supplied. “Detective Gilbert Morris.” He removed a business card from his wallet, placed it in her hand, and closed her fingers around it. “That has all my contact information on it.”
“But why are you here?”
He didn’t want to lower this boom on Camilla Gastellum. She was truly an innocent bystander. Still, he had no choice.
“I need to speak to your daughter,” he said. “I need to speak to Brenda.”
“Why?”
“A man was murdered in Grass Valley sometime over the weekend, possibly on Friday afternoon. When I left to come here, we still hadn’t established a positive ID, but indications are that our victim is Richard Lowensdale. Someone put a plastic bag over his head and taped it shut. He died of asphyxiation.”
“Oh,” she said. And then a moment later she added, “No, that’s not possible. My daughter could never do something like that. Ever.”
“Even so,” Gil began, “you can see why we’re interested in speaking to your daughter. She may know something.”
Camilla Gastellum stood up abruptly. “You aren’t here to talk to Brenda. You’re here to arrest her. You think she did it.”
“Mrs. Gastellum, please—”
“You need to go now,” she insisted. “You’re no longer welcome in this house. And the next time you come back, it had better be with a search warrant.”
Camilla escorted him back to the front door. He heard the security chain lock into place as the door closed behind him. Gil headed back to Grass Valley feeling like he was making real progress. He had a suspect. True, Brenda Riley might be among
the missing. He didn’t for even a moment consider that Camilla Gastellum knew her daughter’s whereabouts, but someone did, and Gil was determined to find that person.
In his experience, most people didn’t disappear without a trace. Somewhere in Brenda’s mother’s house on P Street he would find a clue—an e-mail to a friend, a plane or hotel reservation—that would tell him what he needed to know. But in order to find that information and have it admissible in court, he would have to come back with a properly drawn search warrant. To get a warrant, Gil would need to have enough pieces of the puzzle in place to convince a judge that he had probable cause. Probable cause took work, sometimes a whole lot of work.
33
Grass Valley, California
On his way back to Grass Valley Gil called Fred Millhouse. “How are you doing on next of kin?” Gil asked.
“I’m getting nowhere fast,” Fred said. “As far as I can tell, Lowensdale is an only child. Both of his parents are deceased, which leaves me at a bit of a loss about what to do about getting a positive ID.”
“Maybe one of the neighbors will give us a hand.” Stopped briefly at a stoplight, Gil shuffled through his stack of three-by-five cards. “Try getting ahold of Harry Fulbright. He’s one of Lowensdale’s neighbors. He’s a grizzled old Vietnam War vet who clued us in on the presence of that second UPS delivery person. I’m about half an hour out,” Gil added. “I’ll meet you at the morgue.”
Harry Fulbright and Fred Millhouse were waiting in Fred’s office when Gil arrived. Once the formality of the positive ID was out of the way, Gil returned to his office and tackled the unpleasant duty of notifying both of Richard Lowensdale’s fiancées that the man they knew by another last name had been murdered. Passing along that kind of news to grieving friends and relations was always difficult. In this case it was even more complicated since, in the process, he would also be revealing the fact that their supposed loved one was also a cheat.
Gil dialed the East Coast number first. It was already the middle of the night in New York, but it had to be done. He tried to be kind, but ultimately there was no way to soften the blow.
Janet Silvie listened to what he said with utter mystification. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said. “Is Richard dead or isn’t he?”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Gil said patiently. “Officers went to the address you gave the nine-one-one operator, the house on Jan Road, to do a welfare check. Once there, they discovered the body of a man who has since been positively identified as Richard Lowensdale. We can find no record of anyone named Lydecker living there. Our assumption is that Richard Lowensdale and Richard Lydecker are one and the same.”
“You’re wrong,” Janet declared. “That’s just not possible.”
“If you happened to have a photo of Mr. Lydecker,” Gil suggested, “perhaps you could fax it to me.”
“I don’t have any photos of him,” Janet replied. “None at all. He’s so self-conscious about the scar.”
“What scar?” Gil asked.
“Richard was in a terrible car wreck when he was sixteen, just after he got his license. He was driving. His best friend was killed in the accident, and Richard was left with a terrible scar on his right cheek. He’s spent his whole adult life looking at his face in the mirror every morning, seeing the scar, and remembering what he did to his friend.”
“Then most likely the dead man isn’t Mr. Lydecker,” Gil said. “I was there at the morgue for the positive identification. There was definitely no scar visible.”
“Thank God,” Janet Silvie said. “I’m incredibly relieved, but if Richard—my Richard—isn’t dead, where is he? If you thought you’d found him and you were wrong, does that mean no one is looking for him?”
The truth was, Gil had been looking for Richard Lydecker with all the tools at his disposal, and he had come up empty.
“You should probably call in an official missing persons report.”
“But I already did that.”
“No,” Gil corrected. “The call you placed to the com center turned into a welfare check. I don’t think it was ever passed along as a missing persons report.”
“Can’t you do that much at least?” Janet demanded. She sounded angry.
“Ms. Silvie,” Gil explained patiently. “I’m a homicide investigator. That’s what I’m doing—investigating a homicide that may or may not be related to your Mr. Lydecker. Since I know nothing about him, however, I can’t do the missing persons report. I suggest you call this number tomorrow—”
“Like hell,” Janet responded coldly. “Richard is my fiancé. You expect me to just sit here and do nothing? That is so not going to happen. I already called my boss and told him I’m taking a few days of personal leave. I’ll be in California as soon as I can possibly make it. I’ll be on the first plane out of Buffalo tomorrow morning. I’ll call you back after I make the reservation and let you know what time I’ll be there.”
The idea that Janet Silvie was coming to Grass Valley complicated Gil’s life, but it would make it far easier to interview her.
“Good,” he said. “Will you want to be picked up at the airport?”
“No. I’ll rent a car. If no one else is going to lift a hand looking for Richard, I need to have my own wheels so I can do it myself. My guess is that once you find that crazy woman, that Brenda, the one who was always making up terrible stories about Richard and threatening him, you’ll find Richard too. They were engaged once. When Richard broke it off, she went crazy.”
Gil didn’t let on that Brenda Riley was among the missing, and he wasn’t at all sure who was crazy and who wasn’t, but he didn’t argue the point. “Let me give you my phone numbers,” he said. “That way you can get in touch as soon as you get to town.”
After putting down the phone, he sat and stared at it for a while. He’d never had a next-of-kin notification go quite so haywire. He personally was convinced that, scar or no scar, Richard Lowensdale and Richard Lydecker were one and the same. Gil was convinced; Janet Silvie wasn’t.
Shaking his head, he picked up the receiver and dialed the number for Dawn Carras in Eugene, Oregon. Once again he gave a recitation of who he was and what had happened—that the body of a murder victim, presumably Richard Lowensdale, had been found and that his investigation into the matter indicated that Lowensdale was in fact Richard Loomis, the man Dawn had reported missing earlier in the day.
Dawn heard him out in such aching silence that for a while Gil wondered if the connection had been broken.
“Did you say Lowensdale?” Dawn asked finally.
“Yes. Richard Lowensdale.”
“That sounds like it could be the name she told me,” Dawn said, her voice suddenly hollow and devoid of any inflection. “But if Richard had to go by another name, he probably had a very good reason.”
Yes, Gil thought, because he’s a lying creep.
“She who?” Gil asked. “Who was it who gave you that other name?”
“Brenda. Richard’s ex-fiancée. Somehow she gained access to his computer, and she started calling all of Richard’s friends and trying to tell us what a terrible person he was. That his name wasn’t really Richard Loomis, that it was Richard Lowensdale, that he was a liar and a cheat.”
Which seems to be absolutely true, Gil thought.
“How did she get inside his computer?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but I’m sure Brenda is behind whatever has happened.”
Gil thought it interesting that both Janet and Dawn seemed to know about the alleged stalker, Brenda, who probably really was a stalker. It seemed unlikely, however, that Janet knew about Dawn and vice versa.
“Do you have a photo of Mr. Loomis?”
“No,” she said. “Richard doesn’t allow any photographs of himself.”
Right, Gil thought. The car wreck.
“He was terribly disfigured by a campfire accident when he was younger,” Dawn said. “You can imagine how painful
it must be to live with that kind of disfigurement.” She paused and then added, “Do you think there’s a chance my Richard is still alive?”
Richard, Richard, Richard, Gil thought. You lying turd!
“No,” Gil said. “I don’t think so.” It was a brutally honest answer.
“What should I do now?” Dawn said. “If I come down there, do you think I could help find him?”
With Janet Silvie already planning on flying in from Buffalo, the last thing Gil needed was for Dawn to show up as well. His investigation was already complicated enough without having two feuding fiancées land in the middle of it. He remembered what Rachel had said about selling tickets to the catfight.
“It might be best if you didn’t do anything right now,” he said. “If I find anything out, I’ll be sure to be in touch with you.”
“All right,” she said quietly. Dawn sounded strangely subdued. “Thank you for calling me. I appreciate it.”
Gil gave her his cell phone number in case something came up, not that he thought anything would. He was dead tired. He was sitting there wondering if he should give up for the night and go home when Janet Silvie called back.
“Getting from here to Sacramento is going to take all day,” she said. “Even if I leave here at seven-oh-five a.m., I won’t be there until after six tomorrow night. That’s the best I can do.”
Gil was relieved to hear it. He wasn’t thrilled that Janet was coming, but he hoped he had managed to deflect Dawn Carras. He stayed at the office for a while longer but not much. He was verging on putting in another twelve-hour overtime day. When Chief Jackman found out about that, he would not be thrilled.
Gil went back to his house. Opening the door, he stopped in the doorway and surveyed his desolate surroundings. There were only three pieces of furniture in the living room and that was it. Linda had left him the low-profile Ekornes recliner that she had always hated because it was so hard to get in and out of it. Truth be known, Gil loved it, but every time he settled into it and tried to relax, the phone rang. Still it was better than having no chair at all. Linda had also left Gil a single television set, his son’s cast-off nineteen-inch. It was old-fashioned, definitely not high-def. It was also dying. On the right-hand side of the screen was a black border almost two inches wide. The television sat on top of the chipped brass and glass coffee table that had been deemed unworthy of moving.