Seven Deadly Zins

by Nancy J. Parra

  “No, no, just me. She needs to be found, and soon. She has a bad heart.”

  “We’re doing everything we can, Taylor,” he said, his tone patient and calm. “I’m going to let you go now so I can get back to work. You have to trust me that I’m doing everything I can. You have to trust Deputy Bloomberg. Can you do that?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “That’s all we can ask right now. I know this is high stress. We’ll find her.” He hung up the phone, and I stared at it a moment.

  “Feel better?” Deputy Bloomberg asked.

  “I suppose.” I pulled out my phone and went to the app store and searched for call tracing apps. There were so many. I stood. “I’m going back to the break room.”

  “Just don’t leave the building without letting me know,” he said. “I’ve got a few more things to handle, but I’ll be back the minute we get permission to put a tracer on your phone.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I left the office and found the ladies in the break room. Chelsea was on her iPad. “They can’t put a tracer on my phone until they get a court order. If this guy calls before that, I want to be able to track him. There are several apps. Do you have any idea which one is best? Sheriff Hennessey said I needed to stay within the bounds of the law.”

  “Here, give me your phone,” Chelsea said. She bent over it and quickly swiped though a few things.

  “They have phone number tracing apps?” Holly said.

  “Yes, but not all of them are legal,” Chelsea said. “There are laws in some states that don’t allow you to track who is calling you. The family and friends app will let you see where the other person is.”

  “Oh, that’s a little crazy,” Holly said.

  “It can be abused,” Chelsea said and handed me my phone. “I once did a story on a guy who watched everywhere is wife went. She didn’t even know he was doing it.”

  “Did he catch her doing something?”

  “No actually, he was the one who was doing bad things. He didn’t want to get caught.”

  “How did she figure it out?”

  “One day she forgot her phone and showed up without it. Caught him in the act with another woman.”

  “Oh, man,” Holly said.

  “I used several examples of abuse of that app in my story. People still use it. They think they can trust their family with knowing exactly where they are.”

  “It might be useful if you are in an accident and run off the road or something, and no one can find you,” Holly pointed out.

  “True,” Chelsea said, “but with knowledge can come abuse of power.”

  I paced around the kitchen, studying my phone.

  “Taylor, you should sit down.”

  “I can’t sit. Everyone keeps telling me to sit. I’d rather be taking action. There must be something we can do.”

  “I’ve been doing some research on Harvey Winkle,” Chelsea said. “The man is eighty-five years old.”

  “What?” That news made me sit down. “I’m pretty sure Mandy would not be sleeping with an eighty-five-year-old man. Are you sure he doesn’t have a son or grandson?”

  “Not in California,” Chelsea said. “In fact, Mr. Winkle is in a nursing home in North San Francisco. There is no way he could have been having an affair with Mandy.”

  “Bruce lied to me.”

  “Or someone else is lying to Bruce,” Chelsea said and shrugged. “Without any pictures or fingerprints, we can’t tell if Bruce made Harvey up or if someone else is playing Harvey Winkle.”

  “I told Sheriff Hennessey to look into Harvey Winkle. He’s going to go over to the Brinkman compound and talk to Bruce and Harvey.”

  “Good luck finding Harvey,” Chelsea said.

  “So if Bruce made up Harvey, is Bruce the guy Mandy is sleeping with?” I had to ask the question.

  “I think only Mandy can answer that,” Chelsea said. “Do you think Bruce is connected to Aunt Jemma’s kidnapping?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said and frowned. “I think I would have recognized Bruce’s voice. I’ve talked to him a couple of times now.”

  “So we’re back to square one,” Holly said and put her elbows on the table and tilted forward so her head was in her hands.

  “I hate waiting. I especially hate not knowing.”

  “Well,” Chelsea said, “the good news is we are all here and safe. Also it would seem that Tim is safely out of this since he is currently incarcerated.”

  “I’m calling Patrick,” I said as I suddenly remembered my lawyer.

  “Why? What can he do?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t know, but he might know something. At this point, I’m hoping for any help at all.” I dialed Patrick’s number.

  “Taylor, what’s up? Are you still mad at me?”

  “Hi, Patrick. I have a problem. Someone has kidnapped Aunt Jemma.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I’ve got Sheriff Hennessey working on it, but I need to know. Is there anything else I can do? They tell me just to sit tight.”

  “Where are you? Are you safe?”

  “I’m at La Galleria with Holly, Chelsea, and Miss Finglestein. Deputy Bloomberg is here as well, although I can’t tell if it’s to keep us safe or keep us captive.”

  “Okay, you’re safe.” He blew out a long breath. “Are the kidnappers asking for money? Do you need cash?”

  “No,” I said. “Not yet anyway.”

  “What are they asking for?”

  “They want Chelsea to stop investigating. Me too. I can’t imagine that’s all they want.”

  “Are you waiting for another call? Listen, I’ll clear my schedule and come down there.”

  “Thanks, Patrick, but I’m not sure there is anything you can do here.”

  “Taylor, why did you call me?”

  “I don’t know. Because Sheriff Hennessey said I needed to not do anything that might jeopardize the case against the kidnappers once they are caught.”

  “He has a point.”

  “I know. I thought you could advise me.”

  “Then I advise you to stay put and let the professionals do their job.” He took a breath. “But you don’t listen to me, do you?”

  “Patrick, please don’t chastise me. I need a friend.”

  “I’m your friend, Taylor,” he said, his voice low and serious. “I’ve always been your friend.”

  I sighed. “I know. Listen, thanks for listening. I’m waiting for the kidnappers to call me back. Chelsea is ensuring I use a legal app to record and trace incoming calls.”

  “Good,” Patrick said. “That’s a good start. I’ll cancel my appointments for the day and come down and keep you company.”

  “Please don’t,” I said. “As a friend, thank you, but there’s nothing we can do but wait, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve got people here waiting with me.”

  “I’m a quick phone call away,” he said. “Seriously, if you need me, I can be there in two minutes.”

  “Thanks, Patrick.”

  “Are you okay if they demand money?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  “If you need money, I can get it for you. You let me know.”

  “I will, thanks.” I hung up and looked at the three women in the room. “What do I do if they ask for money?”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Miss Finglestein said and patted my hand. “Jemma has a lot of friends in the community. We’ll get whatever you need.”

  I rubbed my face with both hands and tried to remember to breathe.

  “I say we all get in my car and go down to the Brinkman compound. Someone there has to know something,” Holly said. “And to think, I almost gave them my life savings.”

  “We don’t know if it’s them at all,” Miss Finglestein said. “We really don’t have a clue.”

  “I’ve been digging into the Senator,” Chelsea said as she looked up from he
r iPad. “His political contributors have to be listed online. It looks like Dr. Brinkman was a significant contributor.”

  “Wait, what? I thought they didn’t like each other.”

  She turned her screen toward us. “He gave the Senator ten million dollars.”

  Holly whistled.

  “That’s a lot,” I said. “The feud must have happened after the Senator was elected.”

  “My guess is our guru went to visit the Senator and ask him for a favor,” Chelsea said.

  “Maybe it was a favor the Senator couldn’t grant,” I pointed out.

  “Or maybe he didn’t want to grant it,” Chelsea said. “It would certainly cause bad blood.”

  “Then this is about real estate, right? So who was the realtor or developer who was involved?” I asked and leaned toward Chelsea’s screen.

  “The land that Brinkman wanted was near Tim’s winery,” Chelsea said. “In this petition for zoning, it lists it as a two-hundred-acre ranch. They wanted to develop hiking trails and horse trails as well as off-roading trails for bikes and four-wheelers.”

  “So who stood to gain besides Dr. Brinkman?”

  “The property is owned by a trust … Oh, boy.”

  “What?” we all asked Chelsea at the same time.

  “The trust belonged to Harvey Winkler. He inherited the land from his grandfather, but he left it in trust.”

  “Does Harvey have any heirs who might inherit?” I asked.

  “I’ll have to do more digging.”

  “Things are pretty twisted up,” Holly said. “My head hurts just thinking about it.”

  Patrick came into the back from the front area. “Hello, ladies,” he said. He was a handsome man with dark hair and blue eyes. “Dreamy” was the best word for it. Today he wore a navy suit with a white shirt and a blue and red striped tie. His presence filled up the room. He came straight to me and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Are you holding up?”

  “I’m certainly trying,” I said. “I thought I told you not to come.”

  “Taylor, I care about you and Aunt Jemma. There’s no way I wouldn’t be here.”

  I hugged him again. “It’s been two hours since I heard anything from the kidnappers.”

  “What exactly are they looking for? You said they didn’t ask for money.”

  “They want us to stop investigating Dr. Brinkman’s murder.”

  “Okay, and how is that going to get your aunt back?”

  “That’s what we’ve all been asking all morning.”

  “We think the person who took her didn’t think it all through,” Holly said. “Deputy Bloomberg told us that they are likely to keep her alive or they lose their leverage.”

  “But I think the person is acting rashly and might just dump her,” Miss Finglestein said.

  My heart squeezed at the idea. “We don’t know how they took her,” I said, trying to change the subject. “We all left the winery at the same time this morning. She never showed up for her first appointment—coffee with her social group.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  I looked at the time. “Nearly four hours.”

  “And you know she’s still alive?”

  “I spoke to her.” I stood. “There’s got to be something we can do. Maybe we should be out looking for her car. I tried her cell phone but got nothing. I even tried locating the cell phone with the family app, but it’s off or something.”

  “Was she driving her MG?” Patrick asked.

  “Yes,” we all said.

  “That should be easy to find,” Patrick said. “There aren’t a lot of vintage red MGs out there anymore.”

  “Sheriff Hennessey assures me they are looking for the car, and he’ll let me know when it’s found, but they never did find Jeffery Hoag’s car,” I said. “Whoever is doing this knows the area enough to stash cars where even the cops can’t find them.”

  There was a deep rumbling sound from outside, and we all got up and went out the back door to look.

  “They’ve called in a helicopter search,” Deputy Bloomberg said from just inside the door. “Like I said, they’re taking this very seriously.”

  Chapter 24

  My phone rang. I was concentrating so hard on the helicopter that the sound startled me. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Who is it?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s go inside before you answer,” Patrick said.

  I hurried inside, afraid they would hang up and not call back. “This is Taylor,” I said.

  Deputy Bloomberg motioned for me to follow him.

  “I said no cops,” the man’s voice said. His voice sounded different, as if he were using a machine to change it.

  “You changed phones,” I stated.

  “You were calling too much. It was annoying.”

  “I’m worried about my aunt. I want her back. What can I do to bring her safely home?”

  “Stop investigating,” he said.

  “Okay, we’ve stopped. Can I come pick up my aunt?”

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I know there’s a story set to be printed in the North San Francisco Chronicle this afternoon. I want the story pulled.”

  “There’s a story? We didn’t write a story …”

  Chelsea shook her head.

  I shot her a stink eye. “Okay, the story won’t run,” I said. “When can I get my aunt?”

  “I want the cops called off.”

  “I didn’t call them.”

  “Someone did, and they need to back off or else.”

  “If you hurt a hair on her head, I’m going to hunt you down and do whatever you did to my aunt to you. So I’d be very careful what you do to her. If this nonsense does anything to her heart, I will find you and pull your heart out of your chest and squeeze it myself.”

  “Threats don’t bother me,” he said. “Your aunt is sedated and resting comfortably … for now. Call off the search party.”

  “Any other demands?” I asked as Deputy Bloomberg motioned for me to keep him talking.

  “More will follow,” he said. “Don’t call me back or else.” He hung up.

  “Were you able to trace it?” I asked.

  “We have it pinged between two towers, but we really need three to get a good read on it.”

  “Let me check my apps,” I said and quickly opened the app Chelsea had installed. I looked at the finder map. “It says they are in Sonoma County. That’s good, right? We don’t have to worry about jurisdiction or something.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?” Patrick asked from the doorway. He must have followed Deputy Bloomberg and me.

  “No,” I said. “In fact, he sounded different this time.”

  “He could be using a voice-changing app,” the deputy said. “There are several out there.”

  I turned to Chelsea. “Pull your story.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “How did he know about that story?” she asked. “Only my editor and the printer know about it.”

  “The kidnapper must have ties in the community,” Deputy Bloomberg said. “He may very well be closely tied to you.”

  “What?” Chelsea asked and pointed at herself. “I’m not tied to anyone in Sonoma besides Holly.”

  “And Aunt Jemma and me,” I said.

  “But I didn’t tell any of you about the story.”

  “That’s true,” Holly said. They had all followed me into the office and now hung out in the hallway. “But you did tell your boss, and others on the paper staff had to know. Who’s on the staff?”

  “There’s Cary, Adam, Frank, and Ted.” She counted them off on her fingers. “They wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize a story.”

  “Who else?” Patrick asked. “There has to be someone else. Anyone in the mail room, an intern, someone who sells ads …”

  “It’s a small newspaper,” she said and rubbed her chin thoughtf
ully.

  “What about their wives and family?” Miss Finglestein said. “Wives can be active in other things.”

  “Cary’s wife is a second-grade teacher. Adam’s wife is a stay-at-home mom,” Chelsea said. “Frank’s wife is a mover and shaker at the country club. She has her own real estate company. Then there’s Ted’s wife. She’s an artist with a small gallery on the coast.”

  “Check Frank’s wife,” Patrick said. “There might be a real estate connection.”

  “Got it,” Chelsea said and sat down to do some research on her tablet.

  “We still need to find out the developer for the proposed Brinkman retreat,” I said. “Could it be so simple that it’s Frank’s wife?”

  “Maybe there’s a connection with the Winkle trust.”

  “Hmm, according to Frank’s wife’s website, she’s big into investor properties. There are pictures of her with some local celebs … wait—here’s a picture of her with Dr. Brinkman.”

  “There’s our connection,” I said. “But the caller wasn’t a woman.”

  “You already said they could have used a voice changer,” Holly pointed out.

  “I’ll get Sheriff Hennessey to check out Frank’s wife,” Deputy Bloomberg said. “What is the last name?”

  “Reddington,” Chelsea said. “Frank Reddington is the publisher, and his wife is June Reddington.”

  “I’ll make the call,” the deputy said.

  I motioned for everyone to leave the office, and closed the door. “There’s got to be something we can do. I don’t want to just sit here. Chelsea, can you call Frank and ask him to pull the story? Tell him that Aunt Jemma’s life is at stake. If he won’t pull it altogether, ask him to hold it for at least twenty-four hours. That way the kidnappers will see that we are doing all we can.”

  “Right.” Chelsea walked away and dialed her phone.

  “What are you thinking, Taylor?” Patrick asked. His eyes narrowed in concern. “I know you want to act, but we need to remain as calm as possible.”

  “I’m thinking I want to strangle whoever is doing this, that’s what I’m thinking. But I can’t. So next is to follow the breadcrumbs. We can’t go to the Brinkman compound ourselves. Sheriff Hennessey is taking a team out there. But maybe we can all go to Frank’s house and pay him and his wife a visit.”

  “They live in North San Francisco,” Holly said. “Do you really want to leave Sonoma while your aunt is being held hostage?”