Cynthia Hamilton - Madeline Dawkins 02 - A High Price to Pay (22 page)

“Think it would be possible for Usherwood to access the Alexander’s property from
her place?”

“He definitely could gain access onto her parcel. But I don’t know what type of security Ross has on his perimeter. You’d think it would all be buttoned down. I could ask him, though technically speaking we’re supposed to be concentrating on finding Teresa and clues to her past,” Madeline reminded him as she turned her attention to the far left side of Vivian’
s board.

Under the index card with Teresa’s name was the photo Madeline had taken of Vivian and the girl, and the photos of Vivian and her missing jewels. Underneath these were cards with the names and contact info for Teresa’s previous employers. Tacked to the side were Teresa’s fake SSN and fictitious address.

Of the three mysteries before them, Teresa’s whereabouts and history didn’t seem as compelling when compared to murder and attempted murder. Yet, that was their only official case, the one they’d been paid to carry out.

Madeline let out a defeated huff. She had taken on a relatively simple assignment, but her prior commitment to Cherie had hampered her ability to deal with it in a timely manner. Her stomach knotted at the thought that had she been more diligent…had she been less absorbed in Cherie’s self-obsessed melodrama…had Lauren not failed to give her Vivian’s note
right away…

“I’m surprised Lauren didn’t show up this morning,” Mike said, as if reading
her thoughts.

“It’s a Saturday,” Madeline reminded him.

“Yeah, but she would’ve been
working anyway…”

“I sent her a text telling her not to come in,” Madeline said, keeping her eyes averted to the incident boards. Mike chewed his lip methodically. Having known his partner all her adult life, there were times when he knew her as well as she
knew herself.

“Are you really going to lay the blame for Vivian’s death at that poor kid’s feet?” he asked, his tone even and nonthreatening. Madeline spun around and glared at him, lips parted in exasperation, as if the question was as much of an affront as Lauren’s inattention to
her job.

“It’s not for me to place blame,” she said, though she
did
blame her assistant. The justification repeated itself over and over in her mind until Mike’s reproachful stare made her consciously dismiss it.

“At any rate, we need to get our hands on some solid facts about our mystery girl,” she said as she examined the photo. “I think we need to make a new flyer and plaster it all over town, especially in the
Hispanic areas.”

Mike opened another program and pulled up the old flyer. He swiveled the laptop around so Madeline could
see it.

“Maybe we should do two flyers—one in English and one in Spanish,” Madeline suggested. “And maybe we should offer a reward of
some kind…”

Mike copied the document and began changing the text. “What are we offering a reward for, and how much?” he asked as he translated the copy. Madeline mulled this over for
a moment.

“How about we change the heading to read ‘Missing—Please help us find Teresa’,” she offered tentatively. Mike typed it in and sat back.

“What if Teresa is the name she uses with gringos?” he asked.

“Okay…good point. Let’s go with the standard ‘Have you seen me?’” Mike nodded and made the change. “Then, under her picture, put in quotes ‘Teresa Maria Gomez’, then under that, ‘Last seen near Isla Vista. If you have any information on this young woman’s whereabouts, please call 805-777-5843. $500 reward to anyone who has information that will help us find her.’”

Mike finished the flyer in English and read it aloud.

“What do you think?”
Madeline asked.

“I think we probably need a height and weight description, and anything else that might make her more
readily identifiable.”

“Well, she’s…” Madeline used her hand to approximate Teresa’s height, making allowances for the platform heels she was wearing. “About five-foot-three or four,” she guessed. “Couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.” Mike’s fingers typed in the statistics while he kept his eyes on Madeline, waiting for more telling characteristics.

“Problem is we don’t really know much about her. She seems to have a knack for gaining the confidence of those in need of her services without ever divulging much about her past. What she gave Helen was complete fabrication.”

Madeline turned back to the board. She gathered up the index cards with the contacts she’d gotten from
Sybil Wately.

“While you work on that, I’m going to try to reach these women again. Eleven o’clock on a Saturday…maybe I’ll have better luck this time,” she said as she headed for her own office.
As long as we have at least one lead, we still have hope,
she tried to convince herself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling Teresa Maria Gomez had vanished like
a ghost.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Mike unlocked the door just as Madeline was ending a phone call. He placed the two stacks of flyers on Lauren’s desk and walked into Madeline’s private office. As had become his habit, he scanned the parking lot for signs of law enforcement protection from her window. The lot was already filling up, but he didn’t see any marked or
unmarked cars.

“Any luck?”
he asked.

“Not really,” she said as she typed up her notes. “Did manage to speak with the two women who hadn’t returned my calls, but I didn’t learn anything new from either of them. They both remembered Teresa as being pleasant and reliable…quiet, polite, a Godsend, etcetera. But I don’t think they gave her background a single thought. As with her two other former employers, they both found her ‘serendipitously’ through the deaths of their parents’ friends.”

“That’s a creepy scenario,” Mike said, draping his lanky frame on the chair across from her. “I guess we could always wait until Vivian’s memorial and see if she turns up to find her next employer.” Madeline shot him a look—partly critical, partly amused,
partly intrigued.

“Hopefully, we’ll find her before then,” she said, swiveling around to face him. “I also called Sybil Wately and Susan Kellogg again to see if they remembered anything else that might be
of help.”

“
No luck?”

“
No luck.”

“So, what’s the
plan now?”

“I guess we split up and start handing out flyers.” Neither one of them was very enthusiastic about a day filled with accosting strangers, especially after a long, sleepless night. The private eye’s job was never glamorous, but it could be rewarding. They’d never get rich from it, but they both loved solving puzzles, righting wrongs and sorting out other people’s messes as a means of keeping their grey
matter sharp.

As they were shutting down the office, Madeline’s phone rang. It was Ross Alexander.

“This
is Madeline.”

“They’re taking Cherie in for questioning,” Ross said. He sounded like he was just barely holding it together. Madeline put the call on speaker so Mike could hear
the news.

“Is she coherent enough to
answer questions?”

“I’ve never seen her so out of it. We had to literally pull her out of bed and pour coffee down her to get her eyes open.” Ross held his hand over the phone as he spoke to someone else. “I regret letting the doctor give her a sedative last night. God knows what else she had in her system. She looks
like hell.”

“Have the detectives already left
the house?”

“No. They’re waiting around for Cherie to get dressed. She’s completely distraught. Helen’s up there with her right now trying to get her pulled together. Oh Jesus. I can’t believe any of this,” Ross
said weakly.

“So, they’re actually taking her in?” Madeline asked, looking at Mike with alarm.

“Apparently.”

“Have you called
an attorney?”

“I just called Larry Sloan and got his assistant.” It didn’t surprise Madeline that Ross would seek out one of the most high-profile defense attorneys in the country. “Hopefully I’ll hear back soon. But what do I do in the meantime?” Ross asked, his voice quavering with emotion.

Madeline exhaled slowly, her eyes glued to Mike’s. He shook his head and shrugged. “I can give you the name of a good local attorney who can cover things until you speak with Larry Sloan,” Madeline suggested. “Cherie needs legal
representation immediately.”

“Right. Okay, what’s his name?” Ross asked. They could hear the sound of frantic searching in
the background.

“
Her
name is Liz Sweet, but don’t let that fool you. She’s a barracuda. If I were ever on the wrong side of the law, she’s who I’d call,” Madeline said, regretting her choice of words as soon as they left her mouth. “Which detective did you speak to?”

“Detective Ronald Pulaski of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department,” Ross read off mechanically. “This place is still crawling with uniforms. Do they honestly believe my wife would kill my mother with a houseful of people waiting for her downstairs? This is
absolute insanity.”

“Did they find…what was used…?” Madeline couldn’t bring herself to say “murder weapon” while speaking to the deceased’
s son.

“I assume so,” Ross replied hotly. “They’re not telling me a damn thing. The warrant said they were looking for a ‘silk cord.’ But that doesn’t really tell me a whole hell of lot.” Madeline immediately thought of the cords used to hold back the silk drapes adorning the dining pavilion. So many people could’ve had access to one
of those.

“Okay,” Madeline said, keeping her voice calm and soothing, “I’ll send you the contact info for Liz Sweet.”

“Please do,” Ross said before ending the call. Madeline looked at Mike searchingly, though she didn’t know what she hoped to find on his features.

“You have to admit, she was our pick for the murder,” he said. Madeline eased herself onto the corner of Lauren’s desk and searched her contacts until she found Detective Slovitch’s cell number. She placed the call. It went immediately to voicemail. She decided not to leave
a message.

“Yes, but if the cord was taken from outside the house, then that opens up the field to other possible suspects,”
she said.

“Then they would’ve had to have found another way upstairs,” Mike
reminded her.

“Right,” she agreed absently. She lost herself in thought for a minute as she tried to figure out their next move. “I wonder where they’re going to take her,” she mused out loud.

“Eames had the warrant, but the sheriff’s office has the jurisdiction,” Mike answered.

“Let me find Liz Sweet’s contact info. If Cherie doesn’t have counsel in there with her, it’s practically a guarantee she’ll incriminate herself, guilty or not.” Madeline shook her head at the thought. “Okay, here it is… I just forwarded it to Ross. So, let’s hit the streets, for whatever good it might yield. I’ll take downtown, you take Milpas.” Madeline could tell Mike would prefer to eat nails.

“If you’ve got a better game plan, I’d love to hear it,” she said, taking a handful of fliers from each pile and letting Mike close up shop behind her.

“I don’t like the idea of you out on the streets by yourself,” Mike said from the doorway. Madeline turned and gave him an annoyed look. “Usherwood could pick you off like
a fly.”

“Thanks for the
comforting visual.”

“I think we should stick together,” Mike urged. “You could take one side of the street and I’ll take the other.” Madeline didn’t even bother to reply. She gave him a backhanded wave and turned down
the stairs.

“Call me if you learn anything,” Mike yelled after her. “And be on the lookout
for Usherwood!”

Madeline checked her watch. She’d been on State Street for thirty-five minutes and still had most of her fliers. Her rudimentary Spanish seemed to confuse the Hispanic passersby and the rest took one look at Teresa’s photo and shook their heads. She hoped Mike was having better luck. At least he spoke the language and was in the right part
of town.

Temporarily giving up, she caved in to her craving for caffeine and joined the line that stretched out onto the sidewalk in front of The Roasted Bean. She retrieved her phone from her pocket, as if somehow the device would focus her scattered thoughts. It didn’t.

As she inched her way forward, flashes of the previous night’s horrific events splashed across her mind’s eye, making her groan at the remembered terror. The young couple ahead of her turned around and she gave them an apologetic smile that came out more like a grimace.

She again turned her attention to her phone, willing it to come up with solutions to her myriad concerns. Her body ached from head to foot; she couldn’t tell which was more responsible, the lack of sleep or the accident. She tilted her head to the side, eliciting a loud, painful crunch.

As she rubbed her sore neck, she was able to grasp the most pressing matters as they flittered through her head and assign them some sort of priority. The job came first. Now that Cherie’s party had gone up in flames and the Campbell wedding was still days away, her assignment to investigate Teresa’s background and, if possible, locate the missing jewels, was her paramount concern.

Of course, staying alive should rate just as highly, but there was little she could do to assure that end. Unless she wanted to hire around-the-clock armed guards, there was nothing to stop Lionel Usherwood from carrying out his vendetta.
Even that wouldn’t guarantee my safety,
she
amended glumly.

The crowd crept forward again, but she was still sixth in line. She closed her burning eyes for a moment, only to relive the frightening descent down Meigs Road. She opened them with a start as her Audi hit the first group of trash cans.

A muffled cry escaped her and she almost got out of line. But now she was aware of fierce hunger gnawing at her stomach. Changing lines wouldn’t do her any good, so she decided to make the most of her time by reporting the accident to her insurance company. As she scrolled through her client list, another fragment of memory registered, this time making her feel wide awake.

In a vivid flashback, she recalled Vivian as she placed a call to Teresa to tell her of the change in picking her up. With blinding clarity, it finally dawned on her that Teresa had some type of phone, though there wasn’t one in the clutch Helen brought back last night. This last detail struck her as
rather curious.

Madeline parted the crowd standing behind her as she made a hasty exit and sprinted up State Street. She powered through a yellow light at Carrillo and didn’t slow her pace until she reached the stairs to her office. She let herself in and went straight to the file cabinet where Vivian’s file
was stored.

The copy of Teresa’s W-4 was under the signed contract and her notes. There was a phone number listed, with the correct area code, but Madeline didn’t jump for joy. It was just as likely to be fictitious, like the rest of her information. The one thing that did give her a spark of hope was recognizing the prefix as a local
cell number.

“Let’s see if we get lucky,” Madeline said to herself as she settled in front of her computer. She dialed the number and listened to it ring repeatedly before hanging up. She sat there, chin on her fist, as she wondered why the call hadn’t gone to voicemail. She wondered if there were still packages out there that didn’t offer such features for those on a tight budget. At least it was a working number. That triumph got her mental
juices flowing.

There were five cell service providers in the Santa Barbara area. The only thing to do was start at the top of the list and work her way down. After forty minutes of speaking to one representative after another, giving out her credentials and jumping through all the necessary hoops, Madeline finally got her first
real break.

“That number is registered to Enrique Alvarez,” the
rep said.

“Can you give me his address?” Madeline wrote it down and thanked the man for his help. She grabbed her cell phone and
called Mike.

“Have any luck?”
she asked.

“Nada.”

“Well, I have. Come and get me. I’ve got a bona
fide address.”