Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) (8 page)

Resigned to follow his training, Wainwright left the table and curled up on the floor by the sliding glass doors leading to the patio. He laid his head on his paws but never took his eyes from Lily and the sandwich.

“That’s just plain pathetic,” I said, trying not to laugh. “You’d think we never feed him.”

Lily polished off most of the two quarters of sandwich and managed a few sips of soup before making it perfectly clear she wasn’t having a drop more. The patient Wainwright got the other half of her sandwich. He was eyeing the American cheese one I didn’t eat with hope, but there was no way Greg was going to let him score that much people food.

“I think it’s time for bed, Lily.” I held out my hand to her. She’d been playing with Wainwright and Muffin while Greg and I cleaned up the kitchen.

“Nooooo!” She screwed up her face and shook her head back and forth. “No bed.” She took off, running into the living room area, coming to a halt in front of the TV. She pointed at it. “Cartoons.”

I followed her. “It’s too late for cartoons,” I told her. “We all have to go to bed. Even Wainwright and the kitties.”

Wainwright bumped into her, nudging her with his large head. Lily wrapped her little arms around his neck in a death grip similar to the one she’d given me earlier in the day. “No!” she cried with high-pitched determination. She stomped her little feet on the floor. “No. No. No.”

Maybe we’d made the right decision about kids, after all. Wainwright pulled away, obviously rethinking his stand on the issue, too.

I knelt in front of Lily. “Let’s get your jammies on, and then I’ll read you a story.” I felt her forehead. It still seemed a bit warm, so I dug out the medicine from the bag Zee had packed. Lily saw it and set her face in a scowl. I needed to divert her and fast or it might be a struggle getting her to take some.

“Wainwright loves stories. He’ll come with us.” I reached out a hand to the dog and he came to me. I petted him on top of his head. “How about it, Wainwright, you want a story?” He lashed out his tongue, catching me on the cheek. I was thankful he was playing along.

Lily considered her options. “Doggie read story.”

“Doggies can’t read, sweetie, but he loves bedtime stories.” I stood up and held out my hand. Lily looked from the dog to my hand several times before finally latching on.

“Sweetheart,” Greg said from the kitchen area. “Why don’t you get Lily ready for bed, and I’ll read her the story. That way you can do some more work before we hit the sack.”

I looked down at Lily. “You want
Mr.
Cheesehead Squirrel to read you a story?”

She jumped up and down, changing her mood as quickly as I change lunch options.

“Okay, but you’ll need to get into your jammies and take your medicine like a good girl.”

Bribery worked like magic. In short order, I had Lily in her pj’s, her face washed, her teeth brushed, and the medicine down her throat. By the time Greg came in, she was snug in her bed, clutching the baby doll Zee had given her. Muffin was curled next to her, and Wainwright sat next to the bed. Greg brought in the baby monitor and hooked it up while I went in search of something to keep Lily from falling off the queen-sized bed in the middle of the night. When I returned with two body pillows I’d used when I was injured a few years ago, Lily and Greg were discussing which book to read. While I buffered Lily into the bed, they came to an agreement on
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
.

When I kissed Lily goodnight, she wrapped her little arms around my neck and squeezed with delight, then eagerly hunkered down to hear about a bunny who’s naughty and disobeys his mother.

eight

With a final look
back at the happy scene, I retired to the kitchen and fired up my laptop again. This time I did a map search for Mark Baker’s address. According to the address in the firm directory, he lived in Tustin. On the map it looked like Mark lived on top of a very busy intersection in a mostly commercial area. I knew the intersection in question and couldn’t remember any apartment buildings nearby. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, just that if there were, they would be old and small and probably not very nice.

As paralegals at Woobie, Mark and I make decent money. I have no idea what he makes exactly, but we certainly are paid enough to live in better quarters than this intersection suggested. Of course, Mark could be a miser with his money, choosing to live a frugal lifestyle so he could sock it away for the future. Then again, he might also be forced to live economically due to a secret gambling or drug problem. I didn’t wish the latter on him or anyone, but if he did have that type of monkey on his back and it came to light, it would make it easier for the partners to choose me over him in the race for continued employment.

I zoomed in, using the satellite feature on Google. Sure enough, the area around Mark’s address did indeed look commercial—almost entirely commercial. I enlarged the satellite picture but could not see any sign of residential property. That seemed odd. Switching to another window, I put his address into a reverse lookup program. Up popped a list of names at that address. My eyes widened as I noted not a single individual name, only a couple of business names. It seemed Mr. Baker’s neighbors included a massage place, dry cleaner, pizza joint, and mailbox/shipping business. Mark Baker lived at a small strip mall?

I was pondering what this meant when Greg came wheeling out from Lily’s room.

“She’s asleep,” he announced. “It didn’t take long. I didn’t even get to the end of the book.”

Without looking up from the computer screen, I said, “Farmer McGregor gets eaten by zombie bunnies from another planet.”

“Uh-huh. That must be the new modern edition. I don’t recall that ending from when I was a kid.”

“If it doesn’t end that way, it should.” I kept my eyes on the computer, studying the enlarged satellite photo.

I poked at the screen. “Mark Baker’s address is a strip mall. Probably this mailbox place.”

Greg scooted up next to me to check out the screen. “A lot of people use mailbox companies as their physical address.”

“True, but it makes you wonder where he lives, doesn’t it?”

“Not really, but I know it’s making
you
wonder about it.” Greg winked at me.

“I’m thinking he has something to hide. I’d almost bet on it. He’s just too slithery not to.”

“I’m bushed.” Greg gave my back a gentle, short rub. “I’m heading to bed to watch the news and do a little reading. You coming along soon?”

“Yes, honey. I’m right behind you. It’s been a killer of a day, and I have to get up and get Lily ready to go to Zee’s in the morning.” I dragged my eyes away from the computer to my husband. “By the way, Zee and Seth are going to keep Lily overnight tomorrow so we can go to Isaac’s birthday party.”

“As soon as this is over, let’s take them out for a special brunch or dinner to thank them for all their help.”

“Sounds good to me.” I blew Greg a kiss. “I’ll be in shortly. I promise.”

While Greg got ready for bed, I tried to find out as much as I could about Mark Baker. The problem was, the name was too common and I didn’t know enough about him to narrow down the possibilities. There were also quite a few on Facebook, but none of the profile photos matched his mug.

After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I crawled into bed beside Greg. He had the bedroom TV turned to the eleven o’clock news, keeping half an ear on it while his eyes were glued to a novel. On the nightstand next to him was the receiver for the baby monitor.

I did a quick count of noses. There were four—two dry and two wet. A wet one was missing. “Where’s Muffin?”

Without looking up from his book, Greg answered, “I think she’s bunking down with Lily tonight. When I left, the two of them were curled up asleep like long-lost littermates.”

“If I wasn’t so tired, I’d get up and take a photo of that.”

Greg cut his eyes to me and smiled. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of photo ops over the weekend, sweetheart.”

I cuddled next to Greg and threw one arm across his solid chest. “Are you sorry we didn’t pursue the adoption thing?”

He closed his book and put it on his night stand, then turned to face me, one of his hands stroking my arm. “Sometimes I am,” he answered honestly. “I think we would have made great parents.” He paused. “But we made the decision not to adopt after long and careful consideration, and I still think it was the right choice.” He looked into my eyes. “Don’t you?”

I thought about it a moment. “I did until tonight.”

“Yeah, tonight was tough. Having someone like Lily around would be great, but it’s also a lot of work and sacrifice.” He squeezed me tight. “You know, sweetheart, it’s not too late. We could probably still adopt.”

The snort came out of me unbidden. “They don’t just hand out kids to people of my age and with my body-count track record.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Odelia. We could adopt an older kid. Remember how great you were with Silas and Billy?”

Silas and Billy were young brothers who used to live in the neighborhood with their grandmother. At the time, their mother was in a drug rehabilitation program. The boys often spent time at our house playing with Wainwright. They’d since moved to a new city with their mother, who seemed to have her life back under control. Every now and then Greg received an e-mail from Silas, or the boys would drop by if they were visiting their grandmother. Silas had once stowed away in my car while I was on the trail of a possible murderer.

“Yeah, and I almost got Silas killed.”

“It’s not like you took him along for a joy ride, sweetheart.”

“Still…,” I let my voice trail off.

Before I could say more, Greg grabbed the TV remote from the night stand and aimed it at the TV, raising the volume a notch. On screen was a female field reporter wearing a blue rain slicker with a hood. Behind her were the remains of a brush fire.

“I heard about this on the news earlier,” Greg said. “Good thing we had this rain today or the fire might have gotten out of control.”

“Where is it?”

“Laguna Canyon.”

“Isn’t it odd to have brush fires this time of year?” I asked as I nestled against my hubby.

“They suspect arson or kids goofing around.” The disgust in Greg’s voice echoed how he felt about either situation.

Arson was exactly what the perky but wet reporter was telling her audience. With her pretty face furrowed to match the seriousness of the situation, she also informed viewers that the police had just released information that a body had been found near the suspected point of the fire’s origin.

Greg and I gave the news our full attention.

When the anchors back in the newsroom asked if there had been any identification of the body, the field reporter said the police did not have an ID yet and that it might be several days due to the condition of the corpse, but that the police believed it to be male. She added that it wasn’t clear if the body was the result of homicide or an accident when the fire was set.

I shuddered.

“What do you want to bet,” Greg said, giving me a comforting squeeze, “that the fire was set to get rid of the body, or at least to hide its identity?”

“But she just said it could have been an accident. The dead guy could have been the one setting the fire or doing something stupid and it got out of control.”

Unconvinced, Greg shook his head. “My gut’s telling me it was murder and an attempted coverup.”

I raised myself up on one elbow. “Hey, it’s supposed to be my gut that talks like that, not yours.”

Greg gave me a quick peck on the mouth. His lips tasted of toothpaste. “Guess your gut’s rubbing off on mine.”

“Could be,” I commented, giving it more thought, “but if I was trying to hide a body, I wouldn’t light a fire. That only draws attention to the body dump, and it will be discovered right away. Without a fire, the body might not be discovered for a long time, especially if it’s buried.”

“Good point, sweetheart. But if someone wanted to make sure the identity wasn’t clear, burning might be the best way.”

I pointed to Greg’s cell phone, which was resting on the nightstand next to the baby monitor. “Should we call Dev and give him our theories? I’m sure he’d appreciate them.”

Greg let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, let’s do that. You know how much he loves it when we stick our noses where they don’t belong. Besides,” he added, “Laguna Canyon isn’t his territory. Didn’t you learn a while back that the county sheriff handles that area?”

“Parts of it,” I said, digging through my memory, “and some of it falls under the jurisdiction of the Laguna Beach police.”

“Guess Dev will get off easy this time, all the way around. He won’t pull this investigation, and he won’t have to listen to us play amateur detectives.”

I was about to say more when a high-pitched, blood-curdling screech came out of the baby monitor. Wainwright was the first one out the bedroom door. Scrambling to his feet, he took off like a shot towards the origin of the sound. I was second, my feet hitting the floor with such speed and agility, I astounded myself. I ran across the living room and down the hallway of the other half of the house to the guest bedroom.

Lily tossed her head from side to side. Tears ran down her face from eyes squeezed shut. Her little arms thrashed about, beating off an unknown assailant. Muffin was crouched in a corner of the room, watching with wide-eyed feline fear. Wainwright had his two front paws on the bed. He looked to me, waiting for the command to jump on the bed and rescue our charge. I patted his faithful head and gently yanked his collar, signaling for him to get down.

“Mummy!” Lily screamed in her sleep. Wainwright’s front paws instantly went back on the bed.

Pushing the dog out of the way, I sat on the bed and scooped the distressed child into my arms. I held her tight. “I’m here, Lily.” I knew she wasn’t screaming for me, but for the moment I’d have to do.

“Mummy!” This time the cry wasn’t as loud, but it was just as urgent. I wondered if Lily had had these nightmares when she slept at Erica’s house.

“It’s okay, Lily,” I told her as I stroked her hair. Around her face it was damp. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Lily clung to me, but she still didn’t open her eyes. When Greg made it to the guest room, I was gently rocking her and she had quieted down, her breathing returning to the normal pace of sleep.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked, his voice strained with concern.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure if she called for her mother because she was having a nightmare,” I whispered, “or if the nightmare is that her mother is not here.”

Greg wheeled closer. He had thrown a robe over his boxers. Stretching out a hand, he pushed a lock of damp hair from Lily’s forehead. “She’s slightly warm. Should we give her some more medicine?”

“I gave her some just a little bit ago.” I looked down at the little girl sleeping in my arms, and my heart broke. Where in the hell was her mother? No child should be shunted from one house to another like this. I had the urge to stay home tomorrow and keep Lily close to me. We could bake cookies and play with Muffin. Carl’s assignment would just have to wait.

I laid Lily back down and tucked her in. She was snoozing peacefully now, her face smooth and untroubled. It was then I knew I couldn’t stay home and play house with this poor abandoned child, as much as I knew both of us would love it. I had to find Erica and, through her, locate Connie Holt. Lily needed her mother, not some chunky squirrel who might not have a job in a few weeks.