by E B Corbin
“She did this morning. Told me that Betty Maguire is more than your housekeeper but was also a good friend to your wife.”
“Ah, yes. I guess I didn’t think it was important.” Norman sipped his coffee as a pleasant memory surfaced and erased the permanent wrinkles in his forehead for a brief moment. “I used to call them the Three Mouseketeers.”
Sam nodded. “I know. Helen told me.”
“She did? Wow. You must have made some impression on her. I used to tease them that Mary Margaret was the happy-go-lucky one—at least until she became so sick. Betty was the bitchy one. Always whining about something. And Helen was the silent one. Whatever her thoughts, she kept them to herself.”
“She had a lot to say today.”
“I’m surprised. Did you learn anything useful?”
“Too early to tell. I still have to speak to Betty Maguire and Stacy.”
“Stacy’s not feeling well. Another of her migraines. If you absolutely have to talk to her, it would be best if you waited. I really don’t want to upset her any more than she already is.”
“I’ll try not to ask too many questions and I’ll talk to Mrs. Maguire first.”
“Well, I’m afraid Betty left a text message this morning to let us know she wouldn’t be coming to the house today. She always came for a half day on Saturdays after she had her hair done but since Mary Margaret’s . . . gone.” His voice cracked on the last word. “You might have some difficulty tracking her down.”
Norman began to pick up his coffee mug, sat it down, then picked it up and rested it on his bottom lip. “Have you made any progress figuring out what happened that day?”
“I talked to the nurse, Nora, Father Black, and your brother-in-law, but they all claim your wife was sleeping when they last saw her. Someone’s lying, I just don’t know who.”
“What makes you think one of them is lying?”
Sam’s blue eyes drilled into his. “Because someone smothered your wife, and, if it wasn’t you, it has to be one of the people I’m talking to.”
The coffee mug snapped down and Norman rested his forehead in his hands. “I know it wasn’t me, but I can’t imagine any of them would do such a thing.”
“Somebody did. Right now, you appear to be the most likely candidate. I don’t blame the police for arresting you.”
Norman’s head remained in his hands. “Maybe I should let my attorney plead guilty and claim it was a mercy killing. She seems determined go that route anyway.”
“Did you do it?”
Norman dropped his hands and looked at her, appalled. “No . . . no, of course not. I would never . . .”
“Then you don’t want to plead guilty.”
“It might be the only way to end this. Stacy needs to move on with her life and I don’t think she can until this is settled.”
“Do you think that having her father go to jail for killing her mother will help?”
Norman slumped in his chair. “At least all the speculation will be over.”
“I can’t return your money if you’re in jail.”
“Can’t you give it to Stacy?”
“Did you tell her anything about what I’m doing?”
“No, just that you were trying to help prove me innocent. I didn’t want to get her hopes up until I had the funds in my account.” His anguish disappeared, replaced with a doubtful look. “I’m still not certain that I trust you. You could be pulling some elaborate con like your father. If that million-dollar life insurance police pays off, you might think you can talk me into investing it—take whatever I have left.”
Because Sam understood how he felt, she didn’t take offense. “I can assure you, I’m not. But I have to be certain I’m not making a mistake.”
With a forlorn smile, he said, “Then I guess we’re at an impasse. You don’t trust me any more than I trust you. Maybe we should forget the whole thing. With Mary Margaret gone, I don’t much care what happens to me.”
“What about Stacy? Seems like she needs you.”
“She’s a grown woman. Perhaps it’s time she learned to cope on her own.” Norman kept his gaze on his coffee mug.
While Sam agreed with his statement, she didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up the family any more than it had been. “It might be better to ease her into independence than to throw her to the wolves.”
His head snapped up. “Is that what you think I would do? She may not be perfect, but she’s mine. And I love my daughter. She’s the only part of my wife I have left. I would never do anything to hurt Stacy.”
“You going to jail won’t help her.”
“My attorney tells me that many times a mercy killing is looked at with compassion by the courts and jurors. I could be sentenced to community service or even acquitted outright.”
“And the stigma of never being sure if her father murdered her mother will stay with Stacy the rest of her life.”
Norman ran his hand over his face. A tear leaked out of one eye and he hastily wiped it away. “I don’t have much choice, do I? If you can’t identify who really killed my wife, what hope do I have?”
“I’ll figure it out.” Sam sounded more confident than she felt.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam’s thoughts swirled as she left the real estate office and scanned the parking lot for her rental before she remembered the taxi.
White Cloud’s green cab sat in the first slot of the row in front of Bledsoe’s Realty. When she grabbed the door handle, she found the passenger side locked. The driver signaled with his thumb for her to get in the rear, something she found unusual since he’d had no problem with her sitting in front on the way over.
“Your friends in the black van have arrived.” White Cloud spoke as he started the engine. “We do not want them to know we’re aware of them just yet. They need to believe I’m just a random cab you’ve hailed.”
“Damn.” Sam fought the urge to turn around and survey the area. She briefly considered ordering White Cloud to go to the nearest police station, but quickly dismissed that thought. She would have a hard time convincing the cops that the black van posed a threat and she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself or her fake IDs than necessary.
✽ ✽ ✽
While Sam sat in the parking lot trying to figure out her next move, Henry sat in their temporary apartment and tapped away at his keyboard learning all he could about Julian Stein.
A Google search brought up an actor, several musicians, and a college professor, but none were close to what he was looking for. He tried different variations of the name—Jules Stein, J Stein, Julian Stine—to no avail. The same with social networks—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn—not one of them showed Julian Stein as a member. Frustrated, Henry moved to searching the dark web.
He found a mention of a Jules in one of the many chat rooms he managed to access and was fairly certain it was the man he wanted. The Jules he found had asked for help on an important project in Portland, Oregon, and received three replies. That was too much of a coincidence for Henry to ignore.
But Jules moved each conversation to its own separate chat room. All required a unique password that Henry had not been able to crack so far. His frustration increased as he thought about Sam navigating today with nothing but a Native American taxi driver to keep her safe.
He smiled to himself at the incongruity of the situation. He guessed she could do worse than an Indian guide. And with not even a hint of a whine clouding his brain, he tried to dismiss worrying about his boss. He hoped the trauma of last night had not wiped out his early-warning system—if that was what is was. Many times over the years, he’d considered a brain tumor would be easier to accept than some on-again, off-again premonitions.
But he still grew disgusted with trying to solve the puzzle of Julian Stein. The man had proved more elusive than Henry imagined anyone could be in this day and age. That alone made Henry suspicious.
After several false starts, he managed to crack i
nto Julian’s transcripts from Stanford. The man had mostly A’s for his first three and a half years. In his last semester, his grades dropped significantly. That coincided with Sam’s breakup and Jules’s hookup with her father. No surprise there.
What did surprise him was a note on Jules’s transcript from one of his professors who stated that Jules’s full-time job at Novotech Corporation prevented him from completing several courses. He was curious as to why Stein’s job was even mentioned in his records.
Henry looked up Novotech and found they were a technology firm best known for developing a microscopic tracking device for the Department of Justice. The company completed work on the device around the same time Julian Stein was an employee.
He wondered if the student had worked on the project in its early stages and if the man had been able to secure some of the first prototypes. His mind made the leap to Sam’s .44. If the gun had a microscopic tracker, it would not have shown up in his inspection.
The Smith & Wesson originally belonged to Sam’s father, so Jules had access to it. But how would he know that Sam would choose that particular gun as a keepsake?
Perhaps he didn’t. Could be that every gun had a tracker in case it was stolen. If her father was an avid gun collector as Sam believed, he’d want to make certain his collection was well protected. And if Julian had access to state-of-the-art technology, why not use that to keep track of the old man’s treasures?
Henry thought it plausible. Julian could have kept in touch with his previous employer and could even get access to new trackers as improvements were made. He’d have to check the .44 again, with more care this time, now that he had a clue about what to look for. Except, how did one find a microscopic item?
He had a pretty heavy-duty magnifying glass in his duffel—a gift from his mother when he graduated high school. At the time she still had hopes that her firstborn would become a brilliant scientist even though he’d given up his dream when his father and all their money disappeared. It was the last thing she gave him before she died and he kept it with him wherever he went.
It wasn’t a microscope, but it might do. If not, they could always buy a high-powered microscope. Not some cheap plastic one at Walmart, but a high-end one from a German or Japanese maker that would let him fit the gun under the lens. Sam didn’t seem to have a problem with spending money, so he figured he would mention it to her.
He set aside the thought. He’d deal with it if his magnifying glass didn’t work or if Sam insisted on keeping the Smith & Wesson anyway. She seemed rather certain the gun was not responsible for those goons stalking them, but he wasn’t as sure.
He hobbled to Sam’s closet and stood staring at the safe where she’d locked the gun. He didn’t have a clue about what six-digit code Sam chose for the small lockbox and realized he didn’t know Sam’s birthday, whether or not she’d ever owned a pet, or anything else about his boss that might give a hint as to what she chose for a numeric password.
He crutched his way back to his laptop, taking time to stuff his phone in his pocket in case Sam called. The boot on his foot was driving him crazy so he loosened the Velcro straps to scratch his ankle and stared at the computer screen.
Besides the off chance that Jules had worked on the microscopic tracker in college, Henry was getting nowhere as he dug further into Sam’s former fiancé. Even though she had her doubts about her father’s ability to track her, Henry felt certain that Julian Stein and Sam’s father were somehow behind the two men in the van.
Not able to do anything more about the gun until he got the code to the safe, Henry took a break to make himself a sandwich and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He didn’t want to call Sam in case she was in the middle of an interview with one of their suspects, so he wolfed his lunch and returned to the sofa.
With nothing better to do, he moved his search to mercy killings and the controversy surrounding that topic. From the time Dr. Jack Kevorkian had brought the subject to mainstream news in the ’90s, a lot had been written on the topic. Most citizens of the United States seemed pretty evenly divided in their opinions, although the rest of the world leaned toward accepting euthanasia.
Even still, there were pockets of dissent in places. From the religious belief that only God could determine when someone would die to the more practical objection that vulnerable people could be murdered for gain. Henry had a hard time accepting that a person who had no possible chance of recovery did not have the right to choose to die instead of living day-to-day with unbearable suffering. But he understood the other arguments.
His research left him more confused than not. He knew Sam was determined to prove Norman innocent, but he wasn’t as convinced. If he were faced with such a decision, he didn’t know what he would do.
Sure, Bledsoe claimed to love his wife—and that might truly have been the case—but it could have meant his compassion for her suffering led him to finding a way to end her life. Maybe that zealous pro bono attorney was correct in trying to turn it into a mercy killing.
If not for the matter of the million-dollar life insurance policy, Henry had no doubt he would side with Norman’s innocence. As it was, he simply didn’t know what to think. Money could be as much a motivator as compassion. He knew that from his own reaction when he’d first met Sam.
✽ ✽ ✽
His musings were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. His boss told him what she had learned from Helen while White Cloud wove in and out of traffic in an attempt to lose their tail. She hung up before Henry could object to her continuing with her plan to speak to Betty Maguire and Stacy today.
When she disconnected, she stared at the phone. She had developed a program where she could track someone by downloading an invisible app to their phone. She didn’t need physical access to the phone. She could download it as long as she knew the telephone number. Jules could have done something similar. Much as she hated to give up her phone, it wasn’t worth taking the chance.
Sam asked White Cloud if he could take them across the river. The Native American nodded once and swung into the left lane to merge on to Interstate 5. Since taxi drivers were notorious for their impatience, Sam wasn’t worried that the black van would become suspicious. But she wished for a smaller bridge where she could pitch her phone into the Willamette River. Let Jules try to track it then.
Ahead on the bridge, traffic came to a dead stop. White Cloud remained serene as they sat trapped halfway along the span in the middle lane. He sat back in his seat and tapped the steering wheel to a tune only he could hear.
Sam stretched her neck and strained to see in front of them. “What’s wrong? Can you see anything?”
“More than likely an accident. The GPS turned red for the bridge but it clears up at the end.” White Cloud continued to use the steering wheel for a drum. “We will not be here long.”
Their lane began to inch forward until they were next to an eighteen-wheeler. Sam turned around to peer out the back. She could barely make out the black van, several car lengths behind them.
“Do not worry. They cannot do us any harm while trapped on this bridge.” White Cloud’s eyes met hers in the mirror but he didn’t turn around. “You should relax.”
Sam snickered. “Easier said than done.”
“Do you practice meditation?”
“Um, no. I don’t have time.”
“You should make time. So should your friend Henry. He needs to believe in his inner voice more.”
She stared at the back of White Cloud’s head and ignored his suggestion. She was too busy trying to plan her next move to be concerned about his “inner voice” drivel. “Can you manage to pull into the right lane when we move the next time?”
White Cloud nodded. “As you wish.”
“Preferably in front of a truck that will block the van’s view.”
The taxi driver didn’t answer but when their lane inched forward again, White Cloud slipped into a small space with the grille of an enormo
us truck almost touching the rear of the taxi. Both lanes came to a standstill once more.
Sam waited a moment to be sure the cars as far as she could see in front of them weren’t moving, then opened the door. She dashed to the side of the bridge and with a sigh dropped her phone into the water below, then dashed back just as the line of traffic began to move. She jumped in and slammed the door, barely having time to fasten her seatbelt as the taxi surged forward in the traffic flow.
White Cloud showed no surprise at her irrational action. He merely glided off the exit at the end of the bridge. Sam turned around to see the black van unable to maneuver into the exit lane. She hoped that would be the last she saw of them today.
“Is there an Apple Store on the island?”
“You want to replace the phone you just tossed.”
“As soon as possible,” she said, no longer surprised at the Indian’s equanimity.
“There is a Target not far from here. They have a sale on iPhones this week.”
“Are you sure?” Sam felt naked without a way to contact Henry, but she didn’t want to end up with some cheap knockoff.
White Cloud nodded. “I saw the ad in Sunday’s paper. Today is the last day.”
It struck her as weird that the Native American taxi driver perused the ads in the paper. She always tossed those supplements and went straight to the news. But what did she know? She might be the weird one.
The salesperson in Electronics was busy with another customer so she took the time to inspect the available phones. They had the latest version on sale and it went with a two-year subscription to her choice of providers. She could live with that. She hoped some remained in stock.
When the man in the red shirt was free, Sam stepped forward to gain his attention before an older couple looking at cameras could lure him away. She feared she would never get his assistance if she waited politely. She picked a gold-toned one for her and a silver for Henry and hoped both were still available. Henry didn’t strike her as the type who would appreciate a rose-colored phone.