by Lynn Bulock
“A couple days ago. Thursday, maybe? When she got up that morning, she said she was going shopping. I asked her with what, and she said never mind. Then Gus said he saw her later and the cops were dragging her out of some store. I guess she got arrested.”
“Yes, she did. The police say she was using somebody else’s credit card.”
Sunshine sighed deeply. “Oh, boy. If Zoë stays in jail, the agents will come back pretty quick. It’s going to be hard for her. Hard for anybody around her, too.” We sat in silence for a moment after that, all picturing the kind of time Zoë McNamara would have in the Ventura County jail.
Back home that evening I got out a lawn chair of my own and sat outside for a long time, watching the sun set and the stars come out. I thought about Sunshine, who probably did that every night, but then went to sleep in a tent. Before we’d left, I’d asked her a little about her life and she’d showed us around. The county’s agreement let the people from Camp Freedom use the beach showers nearby, a plus for most of the folks there.
It hurt my heart a little to realize just how good I had it, even when a few days ago I would have said I felt pretty low on the food chain. Compared to Hal’s mini-mansion this apartment didn’t look like much. When I thought about how the thirty or so people at Camp Freedom lived and considered themselves lucky, my life looked totally different. I thought about calling Hal, but again I didn’t have much to tell him.
I had a pretty good idea by now what he wasn’t telling the police. And I could figure out from there how Zoë actually had got that credit card and keys, and why she’d told Ray what she did. But Hal needed to clear that all up with the sheriff’s department before I got involved. Perhaps after their meeting tomorrow I could breathe easier around either of these men.
*
Monday morning’s paper mentioned Nicole twice. On the front of the local section there was an article about her body being identified, and the latest the medical examiner’s office had released. Most of what that article said I already knew from one source or another.
It gave a few more family details in a different way than the obituary on page five. The news article said her father, Paul Barnes, was a “prominent Orange County plastic surgeon” and called Ellie a well-known fund-raiser for several charities. Meanwhile the family must have relented just a little in their decision to shut Hal out, because he was listed in the survivor’s section along with her parents and sister. Sadly, two of her grandparents had outlived Nicole. I could only imagine the pain they felt.
With the rest of the family living more than fifty miles away, I’d wondered where any services would be held. There again the family must have let Hal have some little say in things because instead of being far away, tonight’s gathering and tomorrow’s services would be held just over the county line in Agoura, near Hal and Nicole’s new home. With things located that close, Nicole’s co-workers at Playa del Sol and perhaps even some of her patients could possibly attend. After all my involvement in this, I would be attending, as well, and if Ray didn’t like that he would have to live with it.
Ben worked six hours on Monday, starting fairly early. “I’ll be home in time to pick up Cai Li, get dressed and go tonight. We’ll meet you there,” he told me before heading out the door. I hoped Hal realized what a good kid he had. Even though Ben didn’t get along with Nicole’s family very well, he decided even without being asked that it was important to be there for his dad. I felt proud of him anyway and intended to tell him so the first chance I got.
I paid more attention to the way I was dressed for Monday evening than I might have at another similar event. I wanted to be present, but not call attention to myself in any way. Like Ben, I’d be there to support Hal, but in a quieter way. When I talked to Linnette her decision not to come didn’t surprise me any. She’d only had a few therapy sessions with Nicole, and I don’t think she was up to going to a funeral home yet anyway. Just finishing the day at work still wore her out, and she’d already spent her day off talking to people at Camp Freedom. I felt relieved that tonight she’d stay home and get some rest.
Driving to Agoura didn’t take very long, which surprised me on a weeknight at six-thirty. Rush hour stretched to cover quite a bit of time here, though, and apparently most folks had headed home already on this Monday.
I had to get directions off the computer to find the place, yet another branch of Dodd and Sons. They seem to have the lock on the funeral and memorial business around here. It’s just another industry where small local operations are slowly being taken over by larger national corporate entities. Buck Morgan often fumes that soon we’ll get to the point where no matter what the service or product, we’ll only have two choices. I’d argue with him but on a lot of things I’m not so sure he’s off the mark.
The computer directions got me where I needed to go in one trya rarity for me. Even after several years in the area there are a lot of places where I’m still learning the landscape. Each particular branch of the Dodd and Sons chain had its own different design. The one in Rancho Conejo had a 1950’s A-line look reminiscent of a ski lodge, while the one in Simi Valley appeared to have been modeled after a California mission. This one looked less like a religious institution of any kind than the others, sporting a lot of glass, steel and concrete in spare lines.
Inside, the sparse, modern theme continued. A sign outside what seemed to be the biggest of the three rooms available directed people to Nicole’s visitation. The front of the room had floral arrangements so numerous I wondered if her family had taken the money already paid to the wedding florist and used it here.
Exotic orchids, bird-of-paradise flowers and unusual lilies sprouted from bouquets and pots. I debated about signing the guest book at the door, and then quickly scribbled my name with the “Harris” part a bit illegible. The Barnes family probably didn’t want any reminders of Hal’s former life.
Hal stood at one side of the front of the room, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and somber tie. The fact that he was here and looked less stressed than I’d expected comforted me a little because it meant he hadn’t been held by the sheriff’s department. He stood alone, looking across a good twenty feet of space to where Nicole’s family sat clustered together.
Ellie and Paige sat close to each other on folding chairs, the navy-blue of their outfits accenting the paleness of their skin and hair. The much larger man I assumed had to be Paul Barnes reminded me of the ravens I saw all over Rancho Conejo when I went for walks. His broad shoulders sloped in a perfectly fitted charcoal suit. Silver trimmed the temples of his dark hair, cut short and styled neatly as I expected from a surgeon. He looked like he would be much more comfortable in scrubs under bright lights than he was here, draped in dark clothing and sitting, staring at his idle hands.
Sometime while I observed Nicole’s family, Hal caught sight of me and indicated with a subtle movement that he wanted me to come closer to him. “Hey. I see the police didn’t keep you,” I said, cutting right to the chase. Hal wouldn’t expect me to do anything else.
“Yeah, I took your advice. I told the detective exactly what was going on Saturday, and how I think that crazy woman got Nicole’s keys and credit card.”
I winced a little at him calling Zoë “that crazy woman” but then Hal has never been real politically correct about some things. I could only imagine some of the discussions he and Nicole had about her work. “Nicole brought Zoë home with her, didn’t she?”
Hal looked down at the gray-flecked industrial carpeting and sighed. “She sure did. How did you figure that out?”
“I’m sure Nicole told you I’d been at Playa del Sol a couple times. I had a friend who needed transportation back and forth to one of Nicole’s group therapy sessions. Zoë was part of the same group and I knew that everyone seemed concerned that she’d been more or less left on her own.”
“Right, but no one else almost wrecked their reputation by putting a paranoid schizophrenic in their guesthouse.” Hal fume
d. “That was what half our argument the night Nicole disappeared was all about. She thought that if I couldn’t understand why she did it and back her up, then maybe she should delay the wedding. I told her no matter how long she delayed the wedding, I still wasn’t going to be happy with what she’d done.”
“So what did you do Saturday morning when she didn’t show up?” I asked, fairly sure I knew the answer to that question, too.
“I tossed her patient out as fast as possible. We needed the guesthouse for Nicole’s family, and besides, I didn’t want Whatshername on the property any longer than necessary. She threw a fit, naturally, and I helped her gather up her stuff and get out of there. She asked if she could take the jacket and I said sure. I figured that if it had been out in the guesthouse it couldn’t be anything Nicole cared much about.”
“Bad choice, huh?”
“No kidding. I’d forgotten that Nicole had gone out there to work on her doctoral thesis rough draft a couple weeks ago. That memory lapse nearly got me arrested.”
“I’m glad everything worked out okay.”
Hal smiled weakly. “Yeah, me, too. It was good to tell my folks this morning when they got back from San Simeon that I was no longer the number one suspect in a murder. And I have you to thank for that.” He took me by surprise by pulling me into his arms for a hug. I hugged him back, knowing he needed it but hoping that Nicole’s family was otherwise engaged and not paying attention to us.
Hal stepped back from me suddenly, making me struggle a little for balance for a moment. “Whoops. I hope I didn’t just get you in trouble.”
At first I started to ask how he could possibly get me in trouble instead of things being the other way around. Then I turned and looked behind me to see Ray standing in the back of the room, frowning. From this distance I couldn’t make out the vein in his temple but the rest of his expression told me that he probably had a migraine coming on.
FOURTEEN
I walked to the back of the room, unsure whether I should talk to Ray in this public forum or not. I decided to let him take the lead and he did. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked with ice in his voice. “I figured I’d see you here, but not quite that close to your ex. If he thought he was in deep trouble with Ms. Barnes’s family before, he should catch her mother’s look at him now.”
“I think he’s given up hope of getting back in their good graces,” I told Ray. “Besides, that was just a friendly ‘thank you’ from Hal to begin with.”
“Great. I wish I’d seen how you were going to say ‘you’re welcome.’” The vein in his temple was definitely throbbing.
“Now you’re just being snide.” Nothing like pointing out the obvious. “I hope you’re not going to tell me to leave, because if you try it we’re going to have words.”
“As opposed to whatever you were having up there with Mr. Harris?” Ray’s eyes, which normally flashed with gold flecks, looked more wolfish-yellow right at the moment. It dawned on me that he wasn’t just angry, he was downright jealous. And I couldn’t point that out, either. If I did he’d deny it and get even nastier than he had already.
I took a deep breath, squelched the desire to do an eye roll like a teenager, and went on. “Okay, you have my abject apology for getting physical with Hal in public. But I have to tell you that he honestly was just telling me thank-you for urging him to go to you and tell the truth. Hal and I will always have some connections with each other, but a physical relationship, or even a really deep friendship don’t figure in.”
While I talked Ray focused on me and he began to look less like Hondo when he’s seen a coyote. His shoulders stopped bunching so tightly under his sport coat, and his expression softened just a little. “So you’re the one who told him to come clean about Ms. Barnes and her overstepping her bounds with a patient? How did you figure it out in the first place?”
“It’s easier to explain to you, because you saw me at Playa del Sol. Several times while I was there as a chauffeur I watched interplay between Nicole and Zoë that made me believe that something was going on.”
“And you were right. You know, I think you might be good at this college counseling thing you’re working on. You are observant.”
I felt like snapping at him, telling him I was definitely more observant than some people who jumped to conclusions over a simple hug. But since the situation had just started to defuse I kept quiet on that subject. “Thank you. I try to be. And speaking of observing things, Linnette and I spent a little time at Camp Freedom yesterday.” As long as Fernandez was already unhappy with me, might as well tell him everything.
He didn’t explode right away so I continued. “There’s a young lady down there named Sunshine who might be able to give you information that backs up Hal’s version of how things happened with Zoë. She didn’t know she was doing that yesterday when she talked to us, but the stories match.”
“And you were down there because ” He trailed off, looking like the migraine might be coming back.
“Because we’re concerned about Zoë, even if what she said implicated Hal. Her problems are a long way outside the scope of our Christian Friends group, but she could use some friends, Ray.”
He still looked as though his head hurt. “So you weren’t there to check out the place where we think Nicole went into the ocean, right next to Camp Freedom?”
“Not at all. In fact until just now I didn’t know that was where it happened. My main reason to go to the beach involved Zoë. And I’ve got a second reason you’ll probably like even better.”
“Go on. I’m listening,” he said, although his actions didn’t totally match up with his words. Ray had already started scanning the crowd in the room for whatever information they could provide. His arms were crossed over his chest and his focus obviously wasn’t on me anymore.
Temptation reared its ugly head to see just how wild a story I could get away with while he was only half paying attention. But since I’d been encouraging this man to get closer to God and a regular faith life for months now, I have to model good Christian behavior around him. Sometimes it takes a lot of fun out of things. “The biggest reason we went down there is that it tears me up to feel like I’m between you and Hal. It’s the last place in the world I want to be, because it divides my loyalties.”
Ray looked down at me, paying attention again. “I’m sorry you’re in this position, Gracie Lee. It’s foolish of me to think that you could stay totally out of this investigation because it involves people you’re close to. Try to stay out of trouble, though.”
“Believe it or not, I’m trying. The faster this all gets resolved, the quicker I can go back to a life that doesn’t require so much contact with Hal.”
“And the quicker you and I can talk about what happens next.” He smiled, and I tried and failed to suppress a shiver up my spine. That made him smile even more. “Okay, now I feel better. You certainly didn’t have that kind of reaction from hugging Harris.”
“Nor do I want that kind of reaction from anybody but you,” I told him softly. His eyes widened and I think the good detective nearly dropped his notebook. I don’t get to take him unawares very often, but I really get a charge out of it when I do.
When we went our separate ways Ray admonished me again to be careful, but didn’t say anything about leaving the visitation. That made me happy because I wanted to talk to several other people first. I saw two of them sitting in one of the upholstered benchesthey were a little stark to call pewson the right side of the room near Nicole’s family.
I walked up to the pair and Catalina, one of the few people I recognized here, said hello. “You better watch your back,” she said, looking more than half serious. “I think Miss Ellie tried to drill holes in it with her dirty looks a while back.”
“I’ve just been told the same thing by the police,” I told her. “And I would only feel like a bickering grade-schooler if I said ‘he started it.’” I nodded toward Hal and Catalina laughed softly.
“I’ll second that,” said the dark-haired young woman beside Cat. “I don’t think we’ve actually met, but I’m Monica Walker.” She offered me her hand and I was struck by the softness of it. Her perfect manicure and velvety skin told me that she hadn’t done a lot of duty anyplace like Playa del Sol.
“You took over for Nicole in her therapy sessions. And you’re in her wedding party, so you must be a friend as well as a colleague.”
Her answering smile was soft and sad. “Nicole was my roommate at Vanderbilt. I transferred after freshman year to the UC system, but we kept in touch. Then less than six months ago she joined the doctoral program I’m in and here we were back together again. We could pick up conversations like it had only been ten days apart, not ten years.”
I felt a flash of envy for their friendship before I calmed a bit. Some people had that kind of deep friendship with other women in their livesI didn’t. Linnette came closest to being that kind of friend for me, but I suspected there were still a few things we kept hidden from each other. At their young age I wondered if there was anything Monica and Nicole didn’t share.
“So she was already engaged to Hal when you saw her again here in California. Did she seem happy?”
Monica shrugged. “Most of the time. She was stressed some, with working on her doctorate, getting married and doing clinicals all at the same time. I’d expect that, though. I feel stressed most of the time and I’m not getting married.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. “Nuts. I’m still talking about her like she’s going to come back next week.”
Her grief was natural enough that I felt she was telling the truth. “So that Friday night she wasn’t any more upset than usual?”
