Hard Rain

by Waverly Fitzgerald

  Even worse, the FBI was watching him. His phone was tapped. He was followed. At first, it made him crazy. Sara wanted them to move out of the state. He assured her that would make no difference. The FBI would follow him wherever he went. So he made friends with the guys watching him. Since Ellie never contacted him, it didn’t really matter. Sometimes, he thought she did. Sometimes the phone would ring—usually late at night—and he would pick it up and there was no one there. Just a humming in the night.

  And then one night it was the call he had been waiting for. A call from Marty Stern. A coded message. The news that Ellie was alive and wanted him to help her negotiate her turning herself in to the FBI. He called his contacts at the FBI. He suggested delicately that he might know something about a federal fugitive who wanted to come up from underground. They began to talk, hypothetically, of course.

  He didn’t know why she wanted to surface. He didn’t even think about it. He couldn’t afford to think about it. Until the man showed up at his office with the gun and a knife and demanded he tell him where to find Ellie. Then it was clear that Ellie was mixed up in something much more dangerous than he had ever imagined. Still he had never imagined the knife at his throat.

  Chapter 31

  I called the police. Sara just wept. She kept saying over and over again, “Who would do this to him? Who would do this to him?”

  I tried to get her to back away from the body, but she couldn’t resist touching him, smoothing his hair, kissing his cheeks. Her turquoise blouse was soon smeared with blood.

  The EMTs arrived first but it was clear there was nothing they could do. They did get Sara to go downstairs. I brought out two chairs from the kitchen, always aware that we could be contaminating evidence, and sat with her on the porch, above the roses. They filled the air with a scent so sweet it was almost cloying.

  I was shaking but calm. Something about a crisis settles me down and I knew this was my only opportunity to get information from Sara. Once the police arrived, they would separate us.

  “When was the last time you saw Joel?” I asked.

  “Last night,” she said, her voice weak. “He went out after getting a phone call from a woman.”

  “How did you know it was a woman?”

  “I could hear her voice. It was very high-pitched. Hysterical.” She paused. “I could also tell by the way he spoke to her. Very tender. Very soothing. He kept telling her to calm down. Everything would be OK.”

  “And then he left? What time was that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ten or eleven.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  She shook her head. “I asked but he told me it was better if I didn’t know.” She began sobbing. “When he didn’t come home, I just assumed he was having an affair.”

  I winced, thinking of my flirting with Joel, his flirting with me, my hope that he might spend the night. What were his expectations? Was he just using the flirtation as a cover?

  “I don’t think that’s what happened,” I said. I was putting things together in my mind. Ellie gets back to her home and finds Smitty dead. Or Ellie gets back to her home, confronts an angry Smitty and kills him. Then she calls Joel, panicked. Would he offer to meet her somewhere?

  “Could it have been a call having to do one of his current cases?”

  She pondered that. “Something was bothering him. Usually he is eager to talk about his work. But he was being really secretive about this one.”

  “Maybe the call was from a client,” I suggested. “Maybe someone lured him out of the house?” Maybe Ellie lured him out of the house. “Did you have any reason to believe he was in danger?”

  “Like what?”

  “Being followed, break-ins, someone watching your house.” I was thinking of my experience.

  Sara looked at me puzzled. “Joel is followed all the time,” she said. “The FBI keeps an eye on him because of his involvement years ago with a federal fugitive.” She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Do you think this has something to do with Ellie Foley?”

  “You know Ellie Foley?”

  “Of course, I know Ellie Foley. That woman has almost ruined our marriage several times. I always tell Joel that woman will be the death of him,” she said. And then she realized what she had said and burst into tears.

  Two blue and white police cars pulled up behind the flashing red-and-white aid car. The officers headed inside, then came back down to talk to us. As I expected, they separated us, putting each of us into the back seat of a police car.

  I watched them unroll yellow crime scene tape. The homicide detectives arrived. You could tell who they were because they wore street clothes. I thought about what had happened. If the late night caller was Ellie, maybe Joel went to pick her up. But why would she take him back to the office and kill him? More likely someone had tortured Joel trying to find Ellie. Which would mean that I might be next. Joel didn’t know where she was. But I did. Although not any more. She was gone.

  And how much of this could I share with the police? I decided I needed to call my father. Which meant I asked to speak to my lawyer once I had been transported to the precinct and locked up in an interview room. That didn’t go over well—I saw the raised eyebrows and the head shakes—but they let me make a call. I called my dad’s home phone and told him that Joel Friedman was dead. I could tell he was shocked. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

  “That’s unfortunate,” he finally said. His voice was shaky.

  “What should I tell the police?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “This is still an active case.”

  “Even with Joel dead?”

  “Yes, I’m taking over,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Don’t say anything. I’ll be up there by tomorrow and get this all straightened out,” he said.

  “Please be careful,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on but it’s bad.

  “I know, honey, I’m sorry I got you involved.” And he hung up.

  He didn’t know how involved. I had fallen for a client, a married client.

  I knew the police were listening in on the call. I hoped they could only hear my side of the conversation. I had been careful not to say anything that would let them know I was talking to my father.

  They left me alone in the interview room for another hour. I assume they thought I might change my mind. Then Darrell Darnell entered the room. He shook his head when he looked at me.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” he said.

  “Very thoughtful,” I murmured.

  “I think you’re in a lot of trouble,” he said. “I’d like to help.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t need your help,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” he said, sitting down at the table in front of me. His dark brown eyes were so sympathetic. He reached out his hands to take mine.

  I pulled mine back and shook my head. “I’m not talking,” I said. “I just want to go home.”

  “I don’t advise that,” he said.

  “What not talking? Or going home?”

  “Either,” he said with a sigh. “But if you’re determined not to talk, I would certainly advise you to find some place safe to stay tonight. You’re in the middle of a very nasty situation. Do you realize that Mr. Friedman was tortured?”

  I nodded. Tears began to flow.

  “How?” I asked at last.

  “Someone beat him up pretty badly. Then they went at him with a knife. You don’t know what he told them,” Darrell said, fixing me with those brown eyes, “before he died.”

  I thought about that. I had told him about Melody. I had mentioned Ellie’s name in conjunction with Astoria. Had he given up their names?

  “You know that someone broke into my house earlier today,” I said.

  He nodded. “We do know that. That’s why we’re concerned.” He looked at me with compassion in his eyes.

  “I’ve got more bad news,” Darrell said.

&
nbsp; “How could there be anything worse?”

  “A woman named Melody Peters killed herself last night. Your card was found on her kitchen table.”

  “What?”

  “She jumped out of a sixth story window.”

  “No. She would never have done that!”

  He nodded. “So you do know her.”

  “I talked to her yesterday morning,” I said. “Do you really think she committed suicide?”

  “What do you think?”

  “She was our best witness for…” I stopped aware that I had almost given away the information everyone wanted. The information that Joel had died trying to protect.

  “OK, you’ve convinced me. I promise I won’t go home,” I said. “Can I go now?”

  Darrell shook his head slowly. “I know you. You’re stubborn,” he said. “I want you to convince me. How about you let me drop you off at your location?”

  I shook my head too. How did I know Darrell wasn’t the one following me? Trashing my house? Wire-tapping my phone? I did draw the line at torture. I couldn’t quite picture him doing that.

  “I’ll call my friend and get a ride,” I said. I thought first of calling Matt and Boo but I didn’t want to bring the police down on Boo with his stash of weed and his arsenal of guns. And whatever those guys were doing it was probably illegal. So I called Ginger instead.

  “Sweetie,” I said, and my voice cracked, “can I come and stay with you tonight?”

  “Oh, Rachel! That would be perfect,” Ginger said. “I was just about to call you and ask you if you would come and stay with me!”

  “Really? What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. I can be there in an hour.”

  “OK, but I’m not at home.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the police station. The East Precinct. The corner of Pine and Twelfth.”

  “I know where the East Precinct is. What are you doing there?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  Chapter 32

  I was so wound up I just talked to Ginger nonstop during the whole car ride to her loft in Fremont and while she was making me a cup of tea. I tried not to reveal too many of the details of the case—I didn’t mention Ellie Foley’s name—but I did give her some of the back story.

  “What do you expect of a woman who abandons her child?” Ginger asked indignantly as she set the teapot and tea cups down on her red linoleum kitchen table. She slammed down a pink sugar bowl designed to look like a skunk and a cow creamer full of half and half. That’s when I realized I hadn’t seen Ginger’s daughter.

  “Where’s Taffy?” I asked, after taking a sip of the chamomile tea Ginger had brewed for me. I really don’t like chamomile tea; I assume she thought I needed to be calmed down. I probably did sound hysterical.

  “That’s why I was calling you!” Ginger wailed, settling down in a chair at the kitchen table across from me. “She’s spending the night with Doug and Sheila.”

  “What? What happened?” I was shocked. I had been so wrapped up in my case that I had forgotten my best friend’s crisis. I hadn’t even called Karen to see if she could do anything to help Ginger. “Do they have custody now?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that! The hearing isn’t for another month. But the guardian ad litem appointed by the court thought Taffy should get to know her father better so she’s having her first overnight.” Ginger shuddered.

  Cautiously I suggested, “Well, maybe that’s a good thing. You’re always complaining about not having enough time for your business.”

  “I tried,” Ginger said. She waved her hand at her sewing machine. “But I was too distracted. It just feels so weird to be here alone.”

  “What about going dancing?” I asked.

  Ginger nodded. “I thought about that too! There’s a swing dance at the Century Ballroom on Sundays. I got all dressed to go—” that might explain her outfit: a vintage red-and-white checked gingham skirt with glittery silver rick rack around the full hem—”but then I got worried that she might need me. What if she calls and I’m not here? I always sing her to sleep. And then we have a game where we tell each other how much we love each other. And then we do a sequence of kisses—butterfly kisses, otter kisses…” She broke down, tears flowing.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “It would be like—”

  “It would be like having your heart ripped out of your chest,” Ginger declared. “I can’t believe the woman you’re looking for actually left her daughter behind.”

  “But her option was to go to prison for the rest of her life, or maybe even get killed in some kind of overly dramatic takedown.” I thought of how the Los Angeles Police took down the Symbionese Liberation Army, burning down the house where they were holed up with tear gas and fire bombs, while the radicals huddled in the basement, slowly roasting to death. “She would never have seen her daughter again anyway.”

  Ginger shook her head. “Well, then she should have taken her with her!”

  “But the police and the FBI would have figured that too. They would never have left that child out of their sight.” I wondered if they knew where she was now. I wondered if they had ever thought of using the child as a lure to draw Ellie out of hiding. And then I wondered why I cared. For all I knew, Ginger was right and Ellie Foley was a hard-headed, cold-hearted woman who tossed away her daughter to win her own freedom. But I remembered the way she had looked at me, the longing in her eyes, the disappointment when she realized I was not the person she sought.

  “I know and what’s even weirder: she’s my half-sister.”

  “What?” Ginger’s eyes got big.

  “Yeah, Ellie—um, this woman I’m researching—had an affair with my father. Well, I already knew that. I just didn’t know who she was. I told my mom I had seen him with this redheaded woman and that was when she finally left him. I’ve told you that story before.”

  Ginger nodded.

  “Well, what I didn’t know was that the little girl who was with them was my sister. I wonder if my mother knew that.”

  “You could ask her.” Ginger suggested, getting up to rinse out her teacup.

  “Yeah, right!” Ginger knew about my strained relationship with my mother.

  “So what’s it like?” Ginger asked.

  “What is what like?”

  “Having a sister you’ve never met?”

  “Really strange.” My voice trailed off. “Knowing there’s someone else walking around that you’re related to…”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Well, I remember she had red curly hair. She was born in 1974. When I saw them together at the zoo, she was about five or six. Ell—her mother said she was a double Pisces. Some date in February.”

  “Oh that should be easy to figure out.” Ginger is an astrologer. That’s her main source of income besides making costumes. She does charts and readings for clients.

  She jumped up and got a book from her collection of astrology books, flipped to the back and quickly narrowed in on a range of dates. “For her to be a double Pisces and born in 1974, she’d have to be born either February 22, 23 or 24.”

  “February 22,” I said, remembering.

  “Let’s do her chart!” suggested Ginger. I knew it would be a good distraction for her. And it would be a good distraction for me as well.

  Ginger went over to her computer and typed in the date. “We don’t know where she was born,” she said to herself.

  “Actually, we do,” I said. “She was born while Ellie was in prison so where ever they take female prisoners to give birth.”

  “That would be your specialty,” said Ginger, moving aside to let me access the keyboard. I found out the women’s prison was in Gig Harbor, a community near Tacoma, Seattle’s sister city to the south, during the years Ellie was incarcerated.

  “But you don’t know the time,” Ginger said with a frown, her fingers flying across the keyboard aga
in.

  “Actually, I do,” I said, thinking about my conversation with Karen. “Just before dawn. I know someone who was there. She described walking out to the parking lot and seeing the sun rising.”

  “Let’s see when that would happen in February,” said Ginger, switching to another website and doing some typing. “Around 8:03 AM.”

  In a few minutes, the printer was whirring and Ginger snatched up a sheet of paper covered with colorful lines and strange symbols. I had gotten used to talking with Ginger about astrology. I knew and sometimes understood terms like aspects and ascendants, conjunctions and oppositions, T-squares and the Part of Fortune. But I still couldn’t really read a chart. It amazed me the way Ginger could sit down and accurately describe a person she had never met based on what she saw on a piece of paper.

  “Oh, this is very interesting, Rachel,” she said. “She’s a triple Pisces with Pisces on the Ascendant as well. She would be totally sensitive and imaginative. Probably quite introverted, maybe even a hermit or a recluse.” She furrowed her brow. “She might even have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. Not good! But on the other hand, she would have enormous potential for artistic talent, maybe a musician or a visual artist or a dancer.”

  “Do you see anything that indicates the circumstances in which she was born?”

  “Well, Saturn was in her fourth house. That’s usually a sign of hardship and with Saturn in Gemini, it’s possible she doesn’t even know who her parents were. She’s got the south node there as well, the place where energy leaks out of her chart.”

  “And what about her subsequent life? After she’s put up for adoption.”

  Ginger went back to her computer. “I would need to do a progressed chart. Let’s see what’s happening to her today.”

  I headed out to get us some ice cream, figuring we deserved a treat. PCC, our home-grown food coop, is only a few blocks away from Ginger’s loft and closes at midnight.

  “Oh, this is fascinating, Rachel,” Ginger said, when I returned, a little breathless from my trip up three flights of stairs. The ice cream was already softening—just the way I like it. I spooned out a few scoops in the pretty jade-green bowls Ginger had found at an estate sale.