Murder Al Dente

by Nancy Skopin

  “One second,” I said to Nina.

  I repeated everything she’d said to Jea, who nodded and said, “I will do anything to keep my daughter safe.”

  “It’s going to be a huge change.”

  “I understand that. I would give my life for Sky, so why wouldn’t I change my life for her?”

  “Okay, then.”

  I asked Nina when and where she could meet with them. She said she’d call me back. Five minutes passed during which we all sat silently in Loretta’s backyard. I was starting to worry that Nina wasn’t going to call when my phone vibrated again.

  I answered, and Nina said, “Do you know where the Child Protective Services counseling offices are?”

  “You mean the building on Convention Way?”

  “Yeah. I’ll meet you there at four. Bring Jea and Sky with you, and any possessions they want to take into their new life. Make sure you aren’t followed.”

  “Thank you.” I didn’t utter Nina’s name in front of Jea since only Melinda Tentrees and I knew her real identity. I did pass along her instructions, and Jea agreed to meet me at my office at 3:30.

  CHAPTER 25

  After collecting my sweet dog and giving him a walk and some lunch, I finally unlocked my office and sat down to view the DVD footage Robin had copied for me. As soon as my computer finished booting up, I inserted the disk in the DVD drive and opened the Windows Media Player app. I clicked “play” and the screen filled with a view of the rear deck at the yacht club. The dock wasn’t visible from this angle. As Robin had said, the cameras had been installed to prevent the theft of outdoor furniture. There was no sound whatsoever.

  The date and time stamp in the lower right-hand corner of the screen showed June 8th and 12:03 a.m. I watched impatiently for about fifteen minutes, and was just about to click the fast forward icon when I noticed movement in the center of the screen. At first it just looked like a half a cantaloupe rising above the dock, but then it became a blonde woman, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The image was a bit fuzzy in the dim light, but as she moved toward the steps I recognized Chet’s ex-wife, Vanessa, from the driver’s license photo CIS had sent me. That was all I needed to know. I burned a copy of the disk for myself and labeled the original jewel case with the date, time and location, so I could present it to Bill. I’d just tell him that I’d stopped by to speak with Robin and offered to deliver the disk for him.

  I felt a sense of relief that Chet’s case would soon be closed and I could focus my attention of Jea and Sky’s safety.

  Mother and daughter arrived at my office at precisely 3:30. Buddy greeted Jea like an old friend and then turned his attention to Sky. He started sniffing at her feet and when he reached her smiling face he gave her a sloppy kiss. Sky giggled with delight and patted his huge head. It was amazing to me how calm she was after everything she’d been through.

  Jea had brought two large backpacks and an old suitcase. I noticed the suitcase had a luggage tag, and got out my scissors, snipping the ID tag off and tossing it into the trash.

  “Just being proactive,” I said to Jea. “You’ll need to get rid of anything that can be used to identify you. My friend will teach you everything you need to know.”

  “What can you tell me about her?” Jea asked.

  “Just that she’s a survivor. She’s had a difficult life and was forced to learn how to disappear.”

  Jea nodded as though she understood things I wasn’t saying.

  “Is this everything you’re bringing with you?” I gestured to the backpacks and suitcase.

  “Yes,” Jea said. “I thought it best not to bring too much. Perhaps people will think we went on vacation and not become alarmed as quickly as they would if we packed up everything and vanished.”

  “Does Loretta know what’s going on?”

  “She does, but she won’t tell anyone.”

  “What about your family?”

  “There’s no one left who matters,” Jea said. It was a statement of fact with no emotion behind it, and for some reason that made me sad.

  At 3:45 I dropped Buddy off with D’Artagnon again and everyone climbed into Lily’s work van. It’s a huge white Econoline I occasionally borrow in order to become more anonymous than my BMW allows.

  We drove to the Redwood City Child Protective Services building on Convention Way, collected the luggage from the back of the van, and trooped into the lobby where Melinda Tentrees was waiting. She gave me a quick hug and shook hands with Jea.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  Melinda nodded toward a closed door and, pulling me aside, she whispered, “She’s been working with some of the more traumatized children she’s rescued. They kept asking for her, and their parents begged me to bring her in for counseling sessions. These kids don’t respond to therapy. A regular shrink can’t comprehend what they’ve been through. But they respond to Nina. She makes them feel safe, which is rare for these children. Their parents are very grateful.”

  “How did you find her?”

  Melinda smiled. “She was waiting in the parking lot when I left your office with one of the children she’d rescued. Do you remember Caifen?”

  “Of course I do. How is she?”

  “Better now. She’s been adopted by a lovely family living in Atherton. She’s starting the third grade next fall.”

  “Is she one of the kids Nina works with?”

  “Yes. Anyway, when we were in the parking lot that night, Caifen saw Nina in the shadows and ran to her. It was heart-breaking. I think Nina is the only person who ever made her feel safe. She didn’t know me, so why would she trust me?”

  “And, let me guess. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship?”

  “Actually, yes, it was.”

  The office door opened and Nina, who was a redhead today, stepped out holding the hand of a little girl with blond curls. It was Sarah, the child Nina had rescued immediately before faking her own death. Sarah had originally been kidnapped from her home in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I knew her mom was a single parent, and wondered if they had moved to the Bay Area just to be near Nina.

  Nina made eye contact with me but said nothing as she led Sarah over to Melinda. There were tears in the little girl’s eyes when she looked up at Nina, and I almost broke down when she reached up for a hug and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Melinda took her away to another part of the building, where I assumed her mother was waiting for her.

  When Nina turned back to face me I could swear there was moisture in her eyes. Maybe she was human after all.

  “Thank you for meeting with us,” I said, sounding more formal than I’d intended. “How much cash to you need to make this happen?”

  Nina ignored me and turned to Sky, who was holding Jea’s hand and smiling up at her. “Hey, weird kid,” Nina said, with a smirk.

  “Hello, nice lady,” Sky responded, and giggled. “You look good with red hair,” she added, nodding approvingly.

  Nina almost smiled before facing Jea. “I don’t know everything about your situation, but Ms. Hunter has informed me that your daughter will not be safe from people like those who kidnapped her if she remains in the area. Would you agree with that assessment?”

  Jea nodded. “Yes. They’ll come after her again.”

  “Are you willing to leave everything that identifies you behind?”

  Again, Jea nodded, but said nothing.

  “We’re going to go through everything you brought with you, and I’ll decide what’s safe for you to keep. You okay with that?”

  “I guess so,” Jea said.

  Nina turned to me. “You can go now, Hunter.” She hefted both backpacks and started walking toward the room she’d just come out of.

  Jea picked up the suitcase and took Sky’s hand. “Thank you so much, Nikki.”

  There were tears in her eyes. We both knew we’d never see each other again. Even though we’d met only a week ago, I’d grown attached to the young woman.

&nb
sp; “Wait,” I said. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out an envelope with five thousand dollars in it. “Take this.”

  Jea peeked into the envelope and shook her head. “It’s too much. I can’t”

  “Please let me do this for you.”

  Nina came back into the room at that point and saw what was happening.

  “Take the money,” she said to Jea. “She can afford it, and if you don’t take it you’ll hurt her damn feelings.”

  Jea reluctantly accepted the cash and gave me a fierce hug before leading Sky into the small office where their new life was about to begin.

  Nina gave me an appraising look as I held out another envelope to her. In it was fifteen thousand dollars in cash, “For relocation expenses,” I said.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Hunter. What makes you think I’ll take money from you? It’s not like we’re friends!” She barked out a laugh that sounded like a deranged seagull, and it warmed my heart. Then she snatched the envelope out of my hand. “I’ll give it to Jea. She won’t be able to return it because you’ll be gone. Now get out of here.”

  “Thank you, Nina.”

  “Shut up.”

  She turned and entered the office, closing and locking the door behind her. I wondered if I’d ever see her again. She was a bitch and a stone-cold killer, but she was making a difference in the world. Making it a safer place for dozens of children who probably wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for her.

  CHAPTER 26

  I arrived back at the marina at 4:45. Bill wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours, so I collected Buddy and returned to the office. I’d done everything I could for Jea and Sky, and now that I knew it was Vanessa who’d stolen Chet’s dinghy the night of his murder, I was at a standstill with that case until I could turn the DVD over to Bill. I was feeling restless, and considered calling Jim Sutherland to say I could take my clients back. But then I remembered Elizabeth and Jack were eloping to Vegas in two days. If I was going to attend their impromptu wedding, I needed to book a flight and a hotel room.

  I called Elizabeth at work and asked which flight she and Jack were taking on Friday. When she finished shrieking with joy over the fact that I was coming along, she gave me the Southwest Airlines flight number, and I called to see if any seats were still available. There was one, in business class. The last-minute round-trip fare would be almost $700.00. I booked the flight. We’d be departing from SFO on Friday the 15th at 1:05 p.m., and arriving in Las Vegas at 2:45. Our return flight on Sunday would leave LAS McCarran at 2:35 p.m. and arrive in San Francisco at 4:10.

  Next I placed a call to the Bellagio, where Elizabeth, Jack, and Lily were staying. June was actually the off-season in Vegas, so I was able to book a “Strip View” room for only $394.00 a night. Lucky me. This was turning into an expensive week.

  At 6:00 I shut down the computer and Buddy and I took a long walk before going home to Turning Point. Stepping up onto the aft deck I breathed in the salty air and allowed myself to relax for the first time in over a week. My boat wasn’t just my home, it was my refuge. My safe place, where the world couldn’t touch me. I treasured the Cheoy Lee and loved living aboard.

  I took a shower and fed Buddy his kibble, followed by a Greenie, then sent Bill a text asking if he’d be home anytime soon for dinner. It was a roundabout way of asking him to grab some take-out. I’d been so wrapped up in Sky’s kidnapping that I hadn’t been to the grocery store.

  He responded that he was about to leave the office, and what would I like for dinner. It’s good to live with a man who actually pays attention to what’s in the cupboard.

  “Oysters and lobster cakes from the Lobster Shack?” I texted back. My mouth was watering before he responded with a thumbs-up emoji. Sweet.

  Buddy and I were relaxing in the main salon when the boat rocked, letting us know that Bill, and dinner, had arrived. Buddy made a dash for the companionway and intercepted Bill before he could make it down the steps into the galley. I reached for the aromatic bag, so Bill could defend himself without dropping it.

  Buddy got his ears ruffled and his ribs thumped while I set the table and grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge. When the pup was satisfied that he was loved, Bill washed his hands and joined me on the galley settee. Chet’s murder book was notably absent. Crap.

  “Thanks for getting dinner,” I said. “I’ll make a grocery run tomorrow.”

  I opened the paper bag and lifted out cardboard to-go boxes embossed with the Lobster Shack logo. Of course I had to open each of the four boxes to find out which two were mine and snagged a couple of Bill’s turmeric seasoned fries in the process. He’d chosen the breaded and quick-fried “oysters and chips,” as well as the crispy calamari. I had my own oysters, raw, not breaded or fried, and the calamari didn’t appeal to me, but the Shack’s fries are a favorite of mine.

  When we’d loaded our plates I finally gave Bill a welcome home kiss before diving into my oysters. I always eat the oysters first. When I’d slurped down the last juicy morsel, I took a sip of beer and asked how Chet’s case was coming along.

  Bill hesitated, obviously weighing the pros and cons of discussing an ongoing investigation with a civilian, even if that civilian was his live-in lover and a PI who’d been hired by the victim. Eventually he came to a decision he could live with.

  “Not much progress, yet,” he said. “It turns out his son and his ex-wife are each other’s alibis.”

  “What? Vanessa was with Chance between midnight and two a.m. Friday morning?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “But he’s twenty-five and she’s in her mid-forties. You know that Chance was Chet’s son from a previous marriage, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chet told me he’d recently cut Chance off financially. Maybe Vanessa offered him money in exchange for an alibi. Where, exactly, did they say they were at the time of Chet’s death?” I asked.

  “His apartment.”

  “So the Marina District in San Francisco.”

  Bill nodded.

  “I wonder if any of his neighbors saw them together.”

  Bill didn’t respond to that. I knew he was a good, methodical cop. I just didn’t like not having any control over an investigation in which I had a stake. We both knew I wasn’t going to stop looking into it, no matter how much I trusted Bill to do his job.

  My lobster cakes were getting cold, but Bill needed to know that Vanessa’s alibi was fraudulent, so I took another sip of beer and forged ahead.

  “I called around to the local marinas, asking about the stolen Zodiac, and I spoke with a guy named Robin at the Cooke’s Harbor yacht club.”

  “I met him when I went out to retrieve the dinghy,” said Bill.

  “Right. He mentioned that. I wanted to check out the area around the guest dock where he said it had been left. I was hoping there were some yacht parties going on in the vicinity and maybe someone saw whoever tied it up there.”

  “And?”

  “And while I was there I happened to notice two surveillance cameras facing the yacht club deck. I asked Robin about them, and he said they’d just been installed last week. He forgot about them when you were there. So I asked him to copy the footage between midnight and two Friday morning.”

  “And?” Bill repeated.

  “And...” I pulled the DVD in its jewel case out of my purse and handed it to Bill.

  “Did you watch it?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I watched it. Do you not know me at all?”

  Bill laughed and gave me a calamari flavored kiss.

  “The thing is,” I continued. “I’m pretty sure the person who tied that dinghy to the yacht club’s guest dock was Vanessa.”

  “Huh.”

  “Did you find any prints on the Zodiac?”

  “Chet’s, of course, Vanessa’s, but she was his ex-wife. There were also some smudges that had trace amounts of both GSR and talc.”

  “Talc? So, the killer wore surgica
l gloves.”

  “That’s the assumption.”

  “Any traces of talc on the gun that killed Chet?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a twinkle in Bill’s eye. He’d almost caught me. There had been no mention of talc on the Colt M1911 in the murder book, and I’d almost blurted that out. Of course, we both knew I’d read all the entries in that binder, but it wasn’t something we could discuss openly. Bill needed plausible deniability.

  “Presumably, Chance doesn’t need an alibi, so do you think she’s paying him to keep his mouth shut?”

  “If she’s guilty, that would be my guess.”

  “What do you mean, if? Watch the video. I’m telling you, it’s Vanessa.”

  “I will. Can we talk about something else?”

  I sighed and stuffed a lobster cake in my mouth, chewed, savored, and remembered I was leaving for Las Vegas on Friday. I washed down the lobster with a sip of beer before telling Bill I’d already booked my flights and hotel room. He looked a little disappointed, and I realized I hadn’t even considered inviting him along.

  “Any chance you can get a few days off to come with me?”

  He knew it was an after-thought, but when you’re in a relationship with an independent woman you take what you can get.

  “Probably not,” he said. “At least not on Friday. I might be able to fly down on Saturday.”

  “That would be great,” I said, and I meant it. I’d have to ask Kirk if Buddy could sleep over, but I was sure he’d be okay with it, and D’Artagnon would love the company.

  CHAPTER 27

  When I got to the office on Thursday morning, my head was spinning with all the things I wanted to accomplish before leaving for Las Vegas. I needed a way to disprove Vanessa’s alibi. Bill had viewed the DVD and said he’d take it to his Sargent, but he didn’t think the image was clear enough to be considered conclusive.

  I thought about driving to San Francisco and talking to Chance’s neighbors. I had a photo of Vanessa that I could print and bring along, courtesy of CIS, but the truth is, most people in the city ignore their neighbors, and it had been almost a week. If they did recognize her, they probably wouldn’t remember when they’d seen her. Besides, you can’t prove a negative. Even if everyone in Chance’s building said they had not seen Vanessa there between midnight and two a.m. on Friday, that wouldn’t prove she wasn’t there.