Skies of Ash (37 page)

Colin and I huffed back to the Crown Vic.

“He did it,” Colin declared as though he had found the God particle in his container of Tic Tacs. “I didn’t believe it at first, but he did it.”

“Told you.” I pulled away from the curb. “You see his face when I mentioned Juliet’s cancer? Looked like he was gonna vomit all over my shoes.”

“Suicide attempt at the Bellagio?” Colin said. “Really?”

“The scary thing is,” I said, “is that he’s drinking his own Kool-Aid. By now, him trying to kill himself
is
the truth. He’s a sick fucker.”

“What now?”

“You wanted to know what he does all day? Let’s find out.” I pulled two blocks away from the Oliver house and parked.

“Criminals are stupid,” Colin stated.

“And we will catch him,” I said, “
because
he is stupid.”

Mantras for homicide detectives.

And we held fast to those thoughts, clutching them like fat kids clutching cupcakes.

“But
how
did he do it?” Colin wondered. “How did he start the fire?”

My phone rang, and I answered without checking the caller.

“I don’t have a long time to talk.” It was Adeline St. Lawrence. “I’m at the mortuary with Momma and Daddy Weatherbee.”

“No problem, Addy. I’m just—”

“Did you get my package?”

“What package?”

She sighed with irritation. “I hired a messenger to bring you a manila envelope the other day. It was filled with copies of checks and a banking deposit slip.”

Sharpness, like thousands of tiny razor blades, traveled up my left arm. “Peggy Tanner, Sol Hirsch—”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “Juliet gave them to me a few weeks ago. She wanted me to keep them just in case Christopher did something to her. And I guess he has.”

Sarah Oliver’s gray Infiniti SUV pulled out of the driveway. Christopher Chatman sat behind the steering wheel. He turned right, away from me.

I waited until he made a left at the end of the block, then started my tail. We wound our way down the hill, passing brown nannies pushing pink babies in high-end strollers. At the bottom of the hill, Chatman made a left, away from the airport. At Jefferson Boulevard, he made a right. He drove for a mile, then turned left onto the 405 freeway heading north.

Seconds later, I also zoomed onto the 405.

Miracle of miracles, the busiest freeway in the world wasn’t packed with cars and trucks.

Good for Chatman.

Not so good for me—I could now be spotted. So I hung back and hid behind a UPS van in the middle lane.

And we drove. Past the 10 freeway interchange, past the exits for UCLA and the Getty museum. Over the hill we went, into the valley, less brown today because of the cold, the breeze, and its being Saturday.

The gray Infiniti drifted to the right lane.

“He’s getting on the 101,” Colin said.

Ten minutes later, Christopher Chatman exited Rancho Road and turned right onto Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

We passed a cigar shop, an optometrist, and a sushi bar. As we neared a shopping mall, he turned left into the lot of an EZ-Mail office store.

I passed the business and parked on the street.

Colin snapped pictures with his phone.

Chatman lumbered into the store. He had changed out of his tracksuit and now wore tan chinos and a blue Oxford shirt, his injured arm still trapped in that sling.

We sat and waited.

Chatman returned to the SUV with two stationery boxes in his good arm. He slipped the boxes onto the passenger seat, then returned to the store. In less than a minute, he was back at the car with envelopes in his hand.

I grabbed the case file from the backseat and peeked at Peggy Tanner’s prospectus: PO Box 8181, Thousand Oaks.

Chatman climbed behind the steering wheel. He pulled back onto Thousand Oaks Boulevard, continuing east.

I left my spot and also headed east.

At Fairview Road, less than a mile away, Chatman made a right into another lot, this one belonging to Pacific Western Bank.

Colin took more pictures of Chatman entering the building.

Fifteen minutes later, the banker sped back to Thousand Oaks Boulevard, heading west and toward the freeway to Los Angeles.

“I’m going back to the mailbox place,” I said, and made a U-turn on a side street.

The postal store sold envelopes, packing items, and scrapbooking materials. Gray metal mailboxes took up the entire east wall. A tiny clerk with stiff chocolate curls and a silver nose ring manned the counter. Her name tag said
Tressa
, and she couldn’t take her eyes off Colin.

Colin pushed his aviators to the top of his golden head. He smiled, badged her, and crinkled those baby blues at her. “Hey, Tressa. How ya doin’ today, darlin’?”

Tressa’s eyes filled with cartoon hearts. “Okay, I guess.”

I wandered over to the bin of tape guns.

Colin leaned on the counter. “I’m lookin’ for a PO box, and maybe you can tell me if it’s here.” His eyes dipped to the slice of pale skin at the neck of her EZ-Mail polo shirt.

“Uh-huh,” she said, barely breathing.

He gave her the mailbox number listed on the prospectus.

As the brunette tapped at her computer, Colin winked at me.

I held up a mini tape dispenser. “It’s the most precious thing ever, right?”

“Okay,” Tressa said. “That box is right over”—she pointed to the mailboxes near the rubber stamps and stamp pads—“it’s over there.”

“One more question,” Colin said. “Does it belong to a guy named Chris Chatman?”

She glanced at the monitor. “Uh-huh. L.O.K.I. Consulting Services.”

“Thanks, beautiful. I lied: I have one more question.”

Tressa’s eyelids fluttered. “Yeah?”

“Your daddy a thief?”

She blinked, confused by the question. “Is my… huh?”

Colin smiled. “Is your daddy a thief? Cuz he stole the sparkle from the stars and put ’em in your eyes.”

I groaned and dropped the tape dispenser back into the basket.

Tressa gulped, and those heart-filled eyes of hers shimmered.

He tapped the clerk’s hand. “Thanks for your help, beautiful.” He gave her one last wink and strode toward the door.

AFTER SQUEEZING INTO ONE LANE WITH THREE HUNDRED OTHER CARS TO PASS AN
overturned big rig and then slowing to a crawl as those same three hundred cars braked ever… so…
slightly
… to read the Amber Alert on the highway’s digital message board, Colin and I reached the station at almost four o’clock.

Pepe greeted us with a box of cold Double-Doubles, even colder french fries, and warm Cokes. “You got visitors.”

“Who?” I asked, my mouth filled with hamburger and potatoes.

“Juliet Chatman’s parents.”

I paused in midchew, then swallowed. The burger lodged in my esophagus, then landed in my stomach with a thud.

Colin stuffed fifteen fries into his mouth. “They been waitin’ long?”

Pepe plucked a french fry from my box. “About an hour. They insisted on staying.”

I sighed, then took another bite from my burger.

Colin wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Ready to have a nice little sit-down?”

“They only wanna talk to Lou,” Pepe indicated.

Colin’s eyebrows lifted, and his cheeks colored.

I slurped Coke for a few seconds, then sighed again. My face still ached, and my cheek was especially tight and puffy. I opened my desk drawer and found the tub of facial wipes. After removing a day’s worth of dirt and sweat from my face, I grabbed a travel-sized packet of tissues and the case file, then headed to interview room 3.

The lanky old man held a black fedora in his brown hands. Neat and trim in his cocoa-colored suit, he stood as I entered. One of the two sandalwood colognes in the air belonged to him. The woman, not as brown, but tiny as a mustard seed and put together in her tweed church skirt and pink silk blouse, remained seated. She clutched a pink rosary—Juliet’s.

“We’re so sorry for droppin’ in unannounced,” he Mississippi-drawled. His eyes flit around my face—bruised cheekbone, cut lip, tired eyes—and he frowned. “We been wantin’ to talk with y’all right when we landed.” He held out his large paw and we shook. “Randall Weatherbee, and this is my wife, Maris.”

I took Maris’s hand in mine. “I am so very sorry for your loss.”

Juliet had inherited her mother’s slanted eyes and sharp cheekbones.

Randall twisted the brim of his hat. “We been so… c
onfused
since all this started.” His voice sounded thick and crisp like peanut brittle. “Since Ben called us that morning.”

“And we was so angry,” Maris spat, making anger sound like fluffed pillows scented with lavender satchels. “Cuz a whole day had gone by—”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “The fire happened early Tuesday morning.”

Maris lifted her chin. “And we ain’t found out ’til Wednesday. I was madder than a wet hen that so much time had gone by.”

“I am so sorry about that,” I said, my gut twisting. “Juliet’s next of kin is listed as her husband, and I thought that either he or Ben Oliver would have told you right away.”

The woman rested her warm hand on my wrist. “And you’re right. Christopher shoulda called us. I don’t care if he was in the hospital or having dinner with the president. He shoulda called. I know that’s his wife and kids, but that’s our daughter and grandchildren.”

“Where y’all at in the investigation?” Randall asked.

“Benji told us that y’all caught the man who burned down the house?” Maris said, twisting the rosary around her fist.

“We can’t say anything about that yet,” I said.

“But he the one, ain’t he?” Randall asked, his eyes filled with hope. “The one who murdered…?”

“We haven’t made an arrest yet,” I said, “but when we do, I will personally let you know. Have you talked lately with your son-in-law?”

“He says he can’t say much cuz of y’all’s investigation,” Maris said.

“We visited with him yesterday,” Randall continued, “after going to view…” A far-off look clouded his eyes. “He seemed…
flat
. No… emotion. Shock, probably. Sadness.”

Maris gazed at her husband. “Randy’s kinder than me. When we flew in from Gulfport, we drove right over to Benji’s house and visited with Christopher in that little cottage out back. We brought along some pictures of Juji and our grandbabies.”

“Juji?” I asked.

Randall smiled. “That’s what we call Juliet. It’s silly, but…”

“It’s cute.” I smiled—my father had called me Lulu.

“We brought some lovely pictures,” Maris said, “that we wanted to share with him and maybe use for the memorial.” She took her husband’s hand and squeezed. “This one picture I got, it’s my li’l Coco, and she’s in the living room and all her broken-up dolls are lined up on the couch and against the wall—”

“And we standing there in the doorway,” Randall said, smiling, “lookin’ at her holding a spoon to the dolls’ mouths. And I say to her, ‘Coco, you need some new baby-dolls.’ ”

“And Coco frowned and shook her head,” Maris continued, “and she said, ‘Poppa, just because you’re sick and broken-up, you shouldn’t be thrown away. Jesus wants us to heal the sick.’ ”

“And I just…” Fat tears tumbled down Randall’s cheeks.

Maris rubbed his shoulder. “Randy took pictures of our little nurse, and so we thought… we thought we’d talk and cry with Christopher and pray and miss them and mourn them, together, like family, like…” She flapped her hands at her face and rocked in her seat.

“And we sittin’ there,” Randall said, “cryin’ and rememberin’, but Christopher, he really wasn’t
lookin’
at the pictures. He put his eyes on ’em, but there was nothin’
there
. The engine was runnin’ but nobody was driving.”

“We told him that we planned to speak with you today,” Maris said.

“
That’s
when some life sprang into his eyes,” Randall said. “He tol’ us to call him afterward.”

“Did he say why?” I asked.

“No,” Maris said, “and that just about stirred my stew. Here we are, cryin’ and carryin’ on, and he care more about what we tell
you
.”

“Before this week,” I said, “when had been the last time you spoke with him?”

“Juji called us on Daddy’s birthday,” Maris recalled, “back on Thanksgiving. Then, Juji put the kids on. Cody ain’t said much, but Coco read Daddy a poem she wrote. Sweet girl. After that, Christopher came on the line and we all chatted nicely. Everybody seemed so happy. But butter never did melt in that boy’s mouth, bless his heart.”

Randall cleared his throat. “We know that everything y’all find out will affect how Juji’s insurance policies pay out.”

“That’s correct,” I said.

“He ain’t gettin’ rich off my family’s death,” Randall muttered. “Not while I’m livin’.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You think money is what he cares about?”

Randall opened his mouth to speak but no words came.

“So do you like Christopher?” I asked.

“Years ago,” Randall said, “we liked him plenty. But we didn’t know him.”

“Past tense,” I said. “When did you
stop
liking him?”

“It wasn’t like one big…
moment
,” Randall explained. “It was like… it was like mold growin’. You ain’t even know it’s there ’til it’s all over the place.”

“And Juji started complaining more and more,” Maris added. “And she started doin’ things that wasn’t healthy. All cuz of him.”

“Not healthy? Like what?”

“Well, she’s drinks now, for one,” the woman explained. “And she stopped cooking meals for the babies, and you
know
I taught that girl how to cook. But now, McDonald’s all the time. And she stopped goin’ to church, and that truly worries me. Them kids, especially Cody, need to be at church.”

“When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?” I asked.

“Back on Sunday,” Maris answered. “She told me that she was planning to take the kids on a quick vacation, that they all needed a break, and that I wouldn’t be able to reach her for a week or two. She promised to call when she got back.”

“Do you know where she was going?” I asked.

The couple shook their heads.