Fatal Identity (4 page)

Mercedes was still grinning as she wrote another yellow sticky for Brad, telling him to send Marcie a check for twenty-two dollars, her half of the wedding gift. A call from Marcie always cheered her up, and having her here for the birthday party would be wonderful.

The last message made Mercedes frown. Her agent and business manager, Jerry Palmer, wanted to discuss her next project over lunch tomorrow. But there wouldn't be a next project for Jerry. She'd already talked to someone else, and she was planning to switch to them right after
Summer Heat
was completed.

When she'd broken the news to Brad last night, they'd had a nasty fight. Jerry was Brad's friend, and she'd hired him on Brad's recommendation. They'd argued for hours, but finally Brad had agreed that she needed to go with someone who had more clout with the big boys. And that brought up another problem, one she needed to solve immediately.

Mercedes picked up the telephone and called Sam Abrams. He'd been her lawyer for almost a dozen years, and he was practically a member of the family. That gave her certain privileges other clients didn't enjoy, such as access to his home telephone number.

It took only a moment to make sure that all her future earnings would go directly to Sam's office, and Mercedes was smiling as she hung up. By this time it was almost seven in the evening, and she was beginning to think much more kindly of Rosa's chicken salad. She'd swim twenty laps, treat herself to another glass of wine, and eat in the poolside cabana.

Since she'd already lost a total of ten pounds, none of her old bathing suits fit her new, svelte figure. She'd ordered more, twelve lovely, white suits that had been especially designed for her, but when she opened the drawer in the cabana, she found that the designer had made them in the wrong color. There were twelve new suits, but all of them were red.

Mercedes frowned as she remembered a line from the first threatening letter.
Red is the color of blood.
Her fingers trembled as she held up the suit, but she forced herself to remain calm. The crazy fan was long gone. And even if he wasn't gone, there was no way he could get past the sophisticated security system. She took another sip of wine to fortify herself, and slipped into the red bathing suit. She wasn't about to give up her exercise regime, because some looney objected to the color of her bathing suit!

There was a sound, and Mercedes froze. It sounded like the security gates were opening. Were they home already? She waited a moment, expecting to hear Rosa's car, but there was no crunch of tires on the crushed rock driveway.

It took no more than a second for Mercedes to pick up her revolver. The solid weight of the tempered steel was comforting, and she held it tightly as she listened for any other alarming sounds. But everything was perfectly quiet.

Since her security system was new, and she wasn't quite used to relying on it, it took Mercedes a moment to remember to check the closed-circuit monitor. There was one in every room, including the cabana. When she switched it on, the camera showed that the gates were firmly closed. The sound she'd heard must have come from the pool equipment, or perhaps her neighbor's gate had opened. Sound sometimes carried quite far in the canyon.

Mercedes felt a little prickle of fear as she stepped out of the cabana. Of course, there was no reason to be nervous. Her security system was armed. If anyone tried to get into the house, bells would clang, sirens would blare, and the police would be notified immediately. She was perfectly safe from any intruder.

She put her Lady Smith down at the side of the pool and tested the water with her toe. The pool was warm, just the way she liked it, and Mercedes slid into the water. She'd learned to swim at an early age, like most kids who grew up in Minnesota. The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes had several within biking distance, and Mercedes and Marcie had spent practically the whole summer in the water. But the swimming season was short in Minnesota, barely two months long. Mercedes was glad she lived in California, where she could use the pool year-round.

Mercedes used the Australian crawl for her first two laps. She was an excellent swimmer, and when they were teenagers, both she and Marcie had qualified as Red-Cross-certified Life Savers. When she'd moved to California, she'd actually taken a job as a lifeguard at Santa Monica Beach. It had paid for her acting lessons, and given her a great opportunity to get a tan. Then Mike had discovered her, and her dream had come true. She'd gone from her one-room, ramshackle apartment in Venice, to this gorgeous, twenty-room mansion in Mandeville Canyon.

She pushed off at the deep end and swam another lap, using the butterfly stroke. It was physically exhausting, lifting herself out of the water with her arms, and Mercedes was puffing by the time she finished. Time to change to something less rigorous, like the breaststroke. Two laps of that, and she switched to the sidestroke for another three laps.

Freestyle was next, and Mercedes alternated between her favorite strokes for five more laps. She was getting tired, but she was pleased at all the calories she must be burning. She chose a modified crawl for her last six laps. A total of twenty laps was a lot, but she knew she could do it.

The end was in sight, only one lap to go. Mercedes was running on pure determination, when she approached the deep end of the pool. She looked up and gasped as she saw a dark shape behind the palm tree by the diving board.

Suddenly, the pool lights went out, and she was plunged into darkness. Mercedes opened her mouth to scream, but it ended in a sputter as strong arms pushed her head beneath the surface of the water. She kicked out desperately, trying to propel herself away, but her tired legs found only the slippery resistance of the water. There was nothing to kick, nothing to push, as her head was held under the water in a grasp of steel.

Her tortured mind screamed out for air. Her lungs were burning as her muscles began to spasm. She struggled to pry loose, but her frantically clawing fingers encountered padded gloves. It was no use. Her mouth and lungs were filling with deadly water. The last thing Mercedes Calder saw in the cold, blue moonlight before final blackness closed in, was the wavering image of her killer's familiar face above the surface of the water.

CHAPTER 2

It was seven-fifteen in the morning, when Marcie Calder stepped out of her apartment and prepared to perform the Minnesota Footwear Switch. She carried her shoes in a plastic shopping bag looped over her arm, and wore her boots. She needed boots to wade through the snow to the garage at the back of her building. Once inside, she would slip out of her boots and switch to her shoes to back the car out of the garage. Then she'd put on her boots again to get out and close the garage door. And then she'd switch back to her shoes for the drive to school because her snow boots were too bulky for driving. This was only part of the reason why Marcie never wore shoes that tied in the winter. The Minnesota Footwear Switch still had several more steps.

After parking her car in the faculty parking lot, she'd switch to her boots for the icy trek to the front entrance of the building. Once she was inside, she'd switch back to her shoes, and carry her boots to the rug in the closet of her classroom. This was Marcie's winter morning ritual. When school was dismissed for the day, she had to do the same thing, in reverse, until she was back in her apartment again.

Marcie sighed. Winter in Minnesota was exhausting. Just getting to work could be an ordeal. With her heavy wool coat, scarf, gloves, ski sweater, and moon boots, she carried around at least twenty extra pounds all winter long. No wonder every Minnesotan was delighted when spring finally rolled around. It was like finding a crash diet that worked overnight!

As Marcie walked down the carpeted hallway of her apartment building, she tried not to clump in her heavy boots. Her next-door neighbor worked the late shift at Franklin Manufacturing, and she didn't want to wake him. The Langers, in 103, were already up. Marcie could smell bacon frying, and she wondered how Bonnie Langer got the energy to cook breakfast every morning. She worked two jobs, and so did her husband, Tom. They were newlyweds, and they'd told her they were saving up to buy a house.

As Marcie passed the end apartment, she heard Sue Ellen Dubinski's baby crying. But no more than a second later, the crying abruptly ceased. Sue Ellen must have popped a bottle in his mouth. This was Sue Ellen's sixth baby, and she'd told Marcie that motherhood was easy, once you got the hang of it. She could heat a bottle, feed the baby, and get the older kids off to school without ever really waking up.

Marcie opened the door at the end of the hallway and went down three steps and across a small landing to the back door. Double doors were practically a necessity in Minnesota to keep out the winter cold.

There was a small window in the back door, and Marcie lifted the curtain to peer out at the world outside. It was dark, the sun wouldn't rise for another half hour, and the lights in the yard were still on. Icy snow pelted against the thermal windowpane, and Marcie shivered. It had snowed all night, and the winds were blowing even harder this morning. She was glad she lived only three and a half miles from Technical High School.

Marcie turned up the collar of her coat and tugged her red stocking cap down over her ears. Then she pulled on her gloves and opened the heavy back door of her apartment building. A blast of frigid wind almost knocked her off her feet as she struggled down the walkway to the garage. There was an outdoor thermometer mounted on the trunk of the elm tree, but Marcie didn't bother to look at the temperature. It was so cold her breath came out in white puffy clouds, and she knew the mercury would be huddled down near the base of the thermometer, too sluggish to peek out above zero.

The door to her one-car garage stall was stuck, and Marcie had to give several hard yanks on the handle to free it. The metal door creaked as it rose upward, protesting the bitter weather. The space inside seemed slightly warmer, but perhaps it was only because she was out of the wind. Marcie opened the door to her old VW Beetle, and performed the first switch of the day, from boots to shoes.

The old Bug started on the first try. It was a great car for the winters in Minnesota, heavy enough to plow through snowdrifts, and very stable on the icy roads. She backed carefully out of the garage, and groaned when she heard something snap. She'd forgotten to unplug the dipstick heater again.

Marcie opened the driver's door, switched to her boots, and got out to examine the heavy-duty electrical cord. She was lucky. The plug had pulled cleanly out of the socket, and the cord was still intact. She wrapped it around the bumper and pulled down the garage door. Then she switched to her shoes for the second time, turned on her windshield wipers to do battle with the blowing snow, and drove down the icy alley to the street.

Her radio was tuned to KCLD, a local St. Cloud station, and Marcie sighed as she listened to the weather report. Another two inches of snow predicted, accompanied by winds from the northeast at fifteen to twenty miles an hour. The temperature was expected to drop to minus sixteen, a record low for this date. The announcer sounded much too cheerful as he reminded the “good folks out there in KCLD land” that if you added in the wind chill factor, the total would be a frigid thirty-seven degrees below zero!

Marcie shivered and turned her heater on high. The Valentine's Dance was scheduled for tonight, and she was one of the faculty chaperones. It wouldn't be canceled. Minnesotans knew how to take bad weather in their stride, but the kids would be required to drive on the buddy system. Cars would team up, and if one driver got into trouble, the other would pick up the stranded passengers. Minnesota teenagers knew how lethal the freezing cold could be. With a wind chill factor of thirty-seven below, no one would take any foolish chances.

As Marcie turned onto the Tenth Street bridge, she mentally reviewed the contents of her trunk. She had a twenty-pound bag of kitty litter for ballast, an extra can of gasoline, a spare windshield scraper, two wool blankets, an old Army parka she'd picked up at a yard sale, and a pair of fur-lined gloves. There was also an empty three-pound coffee can, which contained a candle and a pouch of waterproof matches, an effective way to warm the interior of a stalled car until help arrived. It was a standard Minnesota survival kit that wise motorists carried throughout the winter. All those items definitely took up space, but the trunk wasn't used for much else in the winter months. If groceries were loaded into the trunk, soda cans would freeze and pop open, plastic milk cartons would expand and shatter, and a head of lettuce would shrivel up and turn as brown as a walnut.

“This tragedy just in on our newswire.”
The announcer no longer sounded cheerful.
“Local authorities have just recovered the body of a university coed who attempted to walk home from a party shortly after midnight last night. Preliminary medical reports indicate that her left ankle was broken in several places, and she was apparently unable to crawl for help. Her name will be released, pending notification of relatives in Arizona.”

Marcie pumped her brakes lightly and slowed to a careful stop, as the light on Fifth Avenue changed from green to yellow. Even though visitors from other states were cautioned about the severity of Minnesota winters, some of them disregarded those warnings. Just last winter, a businessman from Texas had suffered extreme frostbite while jogging in shorts in the early-morning cold. There were times when the temperature was very deceiving, especially when there was no wind. On a still, sunny day, fifteen below zero might feel almost the same as fifteen above. But there was a huge, thirty-degree difference. Any carelessly exposed patch of skin could be flash-frozen in seconds.

“Oh, for heaven's sakes!” Marcie spotted a familiar figure walking gingerly down a rut in the road, and rolled down her window. “Donna Hunstiger! Where are your boots?”

“I left them in my locker, Miss Calder.”

Donna looked very sheepish, and Marcie did her best not to laugh. Donna's mother would have had a coronary if she'd known her daughter was walking to school in tennis shoes. “Climb in, Donna. I'll give you a ride.”

“Gee, thanks, Miss Calder.” Donna slushed her way to the passenger door and got into the car. “I've got another pair of shoes in my locker, honest. These are my old ones.”

“Don't worry, Donna. I won't squeal on you. Put your feet up by the heat vent.” Marcie showed her where, and pulled out into the street again. “You got a ride home with Dennis yesterday, and it wasn't snowing then. You completely forgot you left your boots in your locker, until you got ready for school this morning.”

“That's right! But . . . how did
you
know?”

Marcie laughed. “I did the same thing when I was in high school, but my sister saved me.”

“Is that your
famous
sister, Miss Calder?”

“That's right.” Marcie noticed the rapt expression on Donna's face, and she knew her story would be all over school by the end of first period. “Mercedes said I could use her boots, if I pulled her to school on the sled.”

“Gee, Miss Calder! Mercedes sure was smart!”

Marcie nodded and pulled over to the curb to let Donna out at the entrance of the school. As she drove around to the faculty parking lot, she laughed out loud. Mercedes had been smart, much smarter than Marcie had realized at the time. Not only had she gotten a sled ride to school, she'd also made Marcie promise to do the dishes for a month!

 

 

By the time fourth period rolled around, Marcie was exhausted. Mr. Metcalf, the principal, had asked Marcie's art classes to decorate the school gymnasium for the dance. Her first-period sophomore class had spent the entire hour making giant, poster board cutouts of hearts and cupids, and sticking them up on the walls. The freshmen in second period had strung ropes of red and white streamers to form a canopy over the dance floor, and her third-period juniors had set up the tables and decorated them somewhat artistically with bouquets of silver hearts and red candles that couldn't be lit because of fire regulations. Now Marcie's fourth-period seniors were decorating the platform where the Valentine King and Queen would hold court.

“Careful, Dennis!” Marcie winced as Dennis Berger almost sideswiped Tina Jensen with a six-foot-wide roll of silver paper. “Jim and Gary? Move the two thrones to the side. Now, Dennis . . . put the roll down right where the thrones go, and tape the end to the floor. Then trail it down the stairs, and let Tina and Debby tape it to the steps.”

“You mean right here?”

Dennis looked confused and Marcie hurried over to help. She'd just finished helping him tape the end to the floor with a roll of gaffer's tape, when the loudspeaker crackled into life.

“Miss Calder?” It was Harriet Scharf's voice, Mr. Metcalf's secretary. “Please report to the principal's office immediately. There's a telephone call for you.”

Marcie frowned. A telephone call? How odd. On the few occasions someone had called her at work, Harriet had always taken the number and informed the caller that she'd return the call during lunch or her free period.

“Donna?” Marcie motioned to Donna Huntstiger. “I have to go to the office, and I'm putting you in charge. Make sure Dennis doesn't tear that paper. It's our last roll. And when you finish the platform, start putting up the backdrops we painted last week.”

Donna gave her a big smile. “Okay, Miss Calder. We know what to do. You don't have to worry.”

“Right.” Marcie walked to the door and turned back for one last look. Tina and Debby were tossing the roll of gaffer's tape back and forth, and the end was flapping. If one of them missed, which was almost a certainty, the strip of tape could land sticky side down and pull the silver backing off the paper. “Donna? There's another roll of tape under the basketball hoop. Give it to Debby so the girls each have one of their own.”

The hallway was deserted with the exception of Tim Meister, who was hanging up his coat in his locker. He flashed her his excuse slip and tried to smile, but his grin was lopsided.

“You've been to the dentist?”

Tim nodded and mumbled something. Marcie managed to catch the words
Novocain
and
speech class.
She certainly hoped this wasn't Tim's day to give a speech!

As Marcie hurried down the corridor past a series of classrooms, she heard fragments of the class activities inside. Tom Jenkins, the math teacher, was demonstrating incomplete quadratic equations, and his whole class looked stumped. Next door, in American History, Dale Goetz was mapping out the path of the Confederate Army in the Civil War. The business class was typing, under the watchful eye of Shirley Whitford, and Lois Weick's English class was reading
Julius Caesar
aloud.

The blackout shade was pulled on the science lab door, and Marcie knew that Alvin Tideman was showing another movie. It sounded like
Our Mr. Sun
. Al had several standbys for the days when he couldn't face another lecture.
Our Mr. Sun,
directed by Frank Capra, was the best of them. There was also
Phun With Phylums, The Amazing Miss Molecule,
and
A Conversation With Your Pituitary.

The principal's office was at the end of the corridor, and Marcie opened the glass door and stepped inside. Harriet Scharf was stationed at the long table next to the office Xerox machine, her tight gray curls bobbing as she stapled packets of papers together.

“Hello, Marcie.” Harriet turned and gave her a nervous smile. “Use my desk. Your call's on line two. It's your sister's lawyer, and he said it was urgent.”

“Thank you, Harriet.” Marcie sat down behind Harriet's desk, and took a deep breath. Why would her sister's lawyer be calling her? She hoped nothing was wrong. Her hand was shaking slightly as she punched the blinking button for line two. “Hello. This is Marcella Calder.”