Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  The phone rang, and she jumped.

  She knew the drill. If it was a friend, get them off the phone quickly; if it was the kidnappers with a ransom call, keep them on the line. The FBI would be recording.

  She picked up before the second ring.

  “Hello?” Cissy said, her heart pounding.

  “I’ve got him,” an unrecognizable voice whispered in a tone that was absolutely chilling. Cissy gasped, her worst fears crystalized.

  “But he’s alive. Tell me he’s alive.”

  “I did something you never did, you selfish bitch. I took him to visit his grandmother.”

  “What?” Cissy was stunned. “Who is this? Where’s my child? I swear if you hurt him, I’ll hunt you down and—”

  Click.

  “Wait!” she cried desperately, her heart in a thousand pieces. “Hello? Hello? Who are you? Oh God, please…Bring him back!” she screamed into the phone, but it was dead, the silence deafening, the rush of fear in her brain sounding like the hollow roar of the sea in a cavern. Thoughts of B.J. crowded through her mind, his laughing face, his impish grin and tiny teeth, his bright eyes. Tears streamed down her face, and she melted against the wall, the horrible words ringing through her brain.

  I’ve got him.

  “B.J.,” she whispered brokenly, burying her face in her hands.

  Chapter 21

  Paterno examined the picture on the Oregon driver’s license.

  It wasn’t anyone he recognized. But it was the picture of the woman who went by the name of Elyse Hammersly, the woman who’d rented the bungalow in Berkeley. The driver’s license listed an address in Gresham, Oregon, as her last place of residence. With a little nudging, he’d had the information faxed to the office in San Francisco and called Quinn to start working on it. Sybil had also handed Paterno a second copy of the documents.

  Now she asked, “How soon will…will the body be removed and I can have the place…ah…cleaned and aired out?” She was calmer and was apparently already calculating the weeks and months of lost rent.

  “Not for a while. It’s still a crime scene. But I’ll let you know.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “I assure you, Ms. Tomini, we want to solve this as soon as possible.” He pointed to a blank line on the rental applications. “You didn’t get any employment history.”

  “Oh. Sometimes it’s not required. Elyse put down first and last month’s rent, plus a security and cleaning deposit. We checked her credit history, and it was stellar. She was looking for work in San Francisco.”

  “She lived alone?”

  Sybil shuddered delicately. “Apparently not.”

  “I mean, she wasn’t married? No live-in boyfriend? Someone who came with her?”

  “Not to our knowledge.”

  “How does she pay her rent?”

  “We send all correspondence to the rental, though we haven’t billed her yet because she paid in advance.” Sybil walked around the desk to the spot where Paterno was standing and flipped over one of the pages he was holding. “See…Here’s the receipt for cash. She hadn’t opened a checking account yet, and since her credit history was so good, no red flags went up.”

  Paterno nodded. Hopefully Quinn was getting some information from Oregon. “She came into your office to rent the place. Did she drive?”

  “I don’t know how she got here, but she met me at the house, so I think she must’ve driven there. Yes, I remember…” Sybil frowned. “I thought it odd at the time. She parked in the back, near the alley.”

  “Do you remember the make of the car?”

  Sybil shook her head. “Sorry, Detective, my mind doesn’t work that way. I can remember houses in minute detail, the flooring, appliances, windows, cabinets, shades of woodwork, but when it comes to vehicles…” She shrugged. “I know it was a car, not a pickup or a van or an SUV, I do remember that much, oh, and it was light colored—white, silver, gray, maybe that champagne color? I don’t know.” She glanced out the window. “For example, all I know about your car is that it’s at least fifteen years old and someone keyed it…. It’s a Lincoln?”

  “Cadillac,” he said.

  “Close.”

  Not really, but he didn’t have time to argue the fine points of the Caddy, nor did he want to think about its marred finish. The vandalism still infuriated him. He asked a few more questions, got no more information, and left, heading straight to Jack and Cissy Holt’s house.

  A gust of wind ripped at his coat and rain pelted from the dark sky, promising a storm, but he felt a little better, as if he had a stronger handle on things. Finally, they were closing in on the murderer. He sensed it. Experienced that little zing in his blood whenever the net was closing around a criminal.

  Now it was only a matter of time.

  He slid behind the Caddy’s steering wheel, swiped at the rain that dripped into his eyes, then fired the car’s engine. Elyse Hammersly. At last he had a name to deal with.

  And her picture.

  Now all he had to do was find the bitch.

  “What happened?” Jack asked, stepping into the hallway with only a towel wrapped around his hips. His hair was wet, his face a mask of concern.

  “She called, oh, Jack, she called!” Cissy said. She was crumpled in the hallway, Coco whining and licking her face, the poor dog’s tail wagging nervously.

  “Who called?”

  “The woman who has Beej.”

  “What did she say?” he asked tautly.

  “She said she had B.J. and, oh God, I think, I mean I thought I heard him crying in the background.” Cissy was losing it. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks, the fear congealing in her soul. “I don’t know who it was. It was a restricted call. She was whispering, and, oh God, she sounded so…cruel, so angry, so…intense.” She gazed up at her husband. “We have to get him back. Before she does something…something horrible. We’re his parents; we’re the ones responsible for his safety. We were supposed to protect him.” She was falling apart, the hole inside her immense. “We have to.”

  “We will. I promise. Come on.” He held out his hand. She clasped it, and he pulled her onto her feet and into his arms. Still wet from the shower, still smelling of soap and fresh water, he rocked her and whispered into her ear as she tried not to shatter into a million pieces.

  “I’ll find him, Ciss,” Jack promised as she rested her head against his chest. He was so strong, not just in body, but spirit. How had she lost sight of that? Ever mistrusted him? “I mean it,” he said into her hair. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get him back.”

  She let out a broken sob and clung to him, all the while telling herself to pull it together. Whimpering and crying weren’t going to help B.J. She had to be strong, to fight back the terror, to go out and find her child. Whoever had called her expected her to crumple, used her weakness where her baby was concerned, wanted her to feel this unending pain.

  “What else did she say? Anything?”

  “Just that she had him, that she’d taken him to see his grandmother, that I never had…Oh God, what was she talking about? I thought you said Marla was dead? She wouldn’t…couldn’t…”

  “Shh. Let’s find out.” Jack pulled her into the bedroom, where he switched the towel for a pair of boxers, jeans, and a sweatshirt. He clicked on the TV as Cissy angrily brushed the tears from her eyes. “The local news should be on….” He rotated through the channels until he found a station that looked promising. “Breaking News” swept across the screen, followed by the image of a small house, a cottage that looked as if it was fifty or sixty years old. A newswoman was standing in front of it, telling a chilling story.

  “…unconfirmed reports of the identity of the body inside, but just a few minutes ago we did see someone from the medical examiner’s office wheeling out a body bag on a stretcher. Speculation is that the deceased person is escaped convict Marla Cahill.” Marla’s mug shot was flashed onto the screen, a black and white photo that show
ed little of the sexy, vibrant woman she’d once been.

  Cissy pressed her hands to her cheeks.

  Standing in the blowing rain, the reporter continued, “As yet the police have not confirmed or denied the identity of the victim, but neighbors of this tidy little bungalow report suspicious behavior.” The camera flashed on the reporter interviewing an older woman leaning on a cane. The Asian newswoman wore a hooded parka emblazoned with the station call letters, KTAM.

  Someone hovering just out of the camera’s range held an umbrella over the older woman, who was wearing an overcoat and a plastic accordion-type rain bonnet.

  With convictions as strong as her jutted chin, the neighbor, identified as Tilda Owens, insisted emphatically that she’d known for the past month that something was “fishy” at the house across the street from where she lived. “…all those late night comings and goings and the shades always drawn. I knew somethin’ wasn’t on the up and up. You can just tell. I thought it was probably drugs,” she admitted, “but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Did you see Marla Cahill enter this house?” the reporter asked.

  “I think so.” Tilda Owens nodded.

  “And you went to the police with that information?”

  “I talked to the landlord.”

  The camera returned to the newswoman. “And that’s what led to this search. One of Treasure Homes’ employees apparently discovered a body and informed the authorities….” Again the camera panned the average-looking house. “This is Lani Saito reporting for KTAM.” The reporter signed off, and Jack used the remote to mute the television.

  “So it’s true.” Cissy couldn’t believe it. Her mother was dead. Shaking her head and biting her lower lip, she stared at the silent television, where an ad for a new sports drink flashed across the screen.

  It was hard to imagine that her mother was actually gone and her son was in the hands of a murderess, a cruel, heartless killer. Why had the woman taken Beej? Why had her boy been with the nanny at her apartment? Who was the woman who had called? The voice on the phone had been hard to hear, but Cissy was sure it had been female.

  “The feds recorded the call on tape,” Jack said, glancing out the window to their van, parked on the street.

  Cissy closed her eyes. Over and over again, she replayed the short, heart-stopping conversation in her head and came to the same pathetic, sick conclusion. She cleared her throat and stared at Jack. “We’re not going to get a ransom call.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because this is personal, Jack. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but this woman hates me. I felt it, heard it, in her voice.” She steeled herself against the awful, mind-numbing truth. “And I know for a fact that she’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants. She’ll hurt B.J. because it’s the best way to get back at me.”

  The Cadillac’s wheels were humming over the Bay Bridge when Quinn called Paterno on his cell. “Paterno,” he answered, switching lanes as he reached the western edge of the bay, where the rain and wind seemed more intense.

  “Okay, I’ve got information on Elyse Hammersly. She’s sixty-four, nearly retired from a phone company in Portland, and has lived in Gresham, Oregon, for the last thirty-five years. She’s never owned a home in California, and the last time she visited was in 1987, when a nephew got married, and that was San Diego. She and her husband drove through San Francisco, spent a night at the St. Francis, and continued to Southern California. On the way back, they stayed in Sonoma, did the wine country thing. Someone’s obviously got hold of her ID, enough to access her credit rating.”

  Crap! He’d expected no better but had hoped the information he’d obtained at Treasure Homes Realty would lead them to the killer. “You check for any other Elyse Hammerslys in the area?” he asked, noting the swells of water just off the bridge, white caps rising furiously on the dark, choppy surface.

  “Yep. Nada. Same with the DMV. If she’s got a car, and we know she does, it’s not registered under Hammersly. I checked all Hammerslys. Again, I’m drawing blanks.”

  “You tell the feds?”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll be hearing from them.”

  He eased off the bridge and worked his way to Market Street. “Look, I’m going to inform Cissy Holt that we found Marla. I’ll show her the copy of Elyse’s fake Oregon driver’s license. If we can’t find anyone who recognizes her, then we’ll have to put it out to the media. In the meantime, show it to Perez and O’Riley. They staked out the Holt house. Maybe they saw her. She has to have been around.”

  “Will do.”

  Paterno clicked off and eased the Caddy through the dark night. The storm was picking up steam, blowing in from the Pacific, wind whipping through the streets, rain slanting from the black sky, the kind of night Paterno’s grandmother had always said “Wasn’t fit for man nor beast.”

  The wipers struggled to keep up with the rain’s assault, and the glare of oncoming headlights made him squint as he turned onto the road near Alamo Square. Jack Holt’s Jeep sat in the driveway of their house, the lights visible behind drawn blinds and curtains. An FBI van was parked up the street. Inconspicuous? Yeah, right.

  Paterno eased into a parking spot along the curb, cut the engine, and tucked the copy of the lease agreement inside his overcoat. Turning his collar against the rain, he half-ran across the street and leaned on the bell when he reached the front door. Hell, what a night.

  Before he’d straightened again, the door swung open, the damned yapping dog went off, and Jack Holt motioned for him to come inside, shushing the little beast as he said, “We heard about Marla. It’s all over the news.” Holt gave him a hard look. “You could have called.”

  “I wanted to come by in person.”

  “Took long enough.”

  Cissy was in the living room, seated on the hearth in front of the fire, looking as if she’d lost more weight, which was a shame. This ordeal was taking its toll on her.

  “So it’s true,” she said, climbing to her feet and rubbing her arms as if she was cold from the inside out. “My mother’s dead.”

  “We think so, yes. She had no ID on her, of course, and we didn’t find any of her prison clothes, nothing to indicate that the body was hers.”

  “You couldn’t tell?” Cissy asked uncomfortably.

  “It had been a while since she died.”

  She went white as a sheet and swallowed hard, as if trying to keep whatever was in her stomach down.

  “We’ll need dental or DNA to be certain.”

  Cissy nodded tautly several times, processing. “She was murdered.”

  “We think so. Looks like a bullet wound to the back of her head.”

  “Who killed her?” Jack asked. “The person who has our son?”

  Paterno sidestepped. “We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  “But she was holed up in that house.” Cissy looked at him.

  “Yes.”

  She picked up the damned little mutt and held her close. “You thought she had an accomplice.”

  “Could be a double-cross. Maybe your mother isn’t the person responsible for the crimes.”

  Cissy said slowly, “I think whoever killed her called here.”

  Paterno’s attention sharpened. “Called you?”

  Jack nodded. “The FBI taped it from their van. They just came in and talked to us.”

  “I hadn’t heard about the call.”

  “There’s not much to tell. The woman basically taunted Cissy about having B.J. Said she’d taken him to ‘see his grandmother.’”

  Paterno glanced at Cissy, and she repeated the entire conversation. She finished with, “Then she hung up. I can’t believe it. If Marla was dead…decomposing? What was she thinking? Beej was probably scared out of his mind.” Her face tightened, and she blinked against tears.

  “We found a scrap of cotton fabric there. Fuzzy. Blue. Could be part of a blanket. We’re analyzing it.”

  “That damned bitch! What’s she d
oing to my child?” Cissy was instantly livid. The dog whimpered, and she leaned over to let Coco down again.

  Paterno asked, “Do you know anyone named Elyse?”

  Cissy and Jack shook their heads.

  “Elyse Hammersly?”

  “No. Why?”

  “That’s the name of the woman who rented the house where we found Marla. We think she’s also disguised herself as Mary Smith.” He pulled the copies of the lease agreement and ID from his pocket and handed them to the Holts.

  Cissy just stared at the grainy picture on the copy of the Oregon driver’s license. Her pale skin turned ashen. “This woman is Elyse?” she whispered in disbelief.

  “Wasn’t she here after the funeral? Serving?” Jack stared at the license photo too.

  “You know her.” Paterno felt a jolt of adrenaline.

  Cissy stared hard at the photo. Shock and fear registered in her eyes. “There has to be some mistake. This is a picture of Diedre Lawson, Detective. She works at Joltz. It’s a coffee shop I go to. She’s not really a friend of mine, but we know each other. No, you have to be wrong. I mean, I can’t believe that…Why?” Cissy started to tremble all over. “Are you telling me that Diedre killed my mother…and has my son?”

  Jack swore pungently through clenched teeth.

  Paterno’s brain was clicking. “Do you know that your mother had another child, a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption a few years before you were born?”

  Cissy recoiled. “What are you saying? I have a sibling? No…The only sibling I have is my brother…half-brother…in Oregon. James, who lives with my uncle.”

  “I know this is a shock, but we found out through your grandmother’s diary, and records at Cahill House, that before your mother was married, she had a baby girl and gave her up for adoption. She was at Cahill House. That’s how she met your father.”

  “No way!” Cissy held up her hands. “I mean, I would have known. Someone would have told me. Gran would have…” Her expression changed from denial to something darker, as if the muscles of her face were drawn by the fingers of fear.