Piraino sighed. “I’m sorry to hear it. I liked Andrew. Any chance it was a natural death?”
“Unlikely.”
“Damn shame. I think he expected something like this—not the shallow grave, precisely, but something.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Our arrangement. As his attorney I can’t talk to you, but as his agent under power of attorney I can say whatever I want. Andrew traveled overseas for extended periods. He hired me to pay the bills.”
“He didn’t have an accountant for that?”
“He did. One I hired for him. I had specific instructions in the event he disappeared.”
“Did he have a will?”
“It was the same as his instructions.”
“Which were?”
“If he went missing for ninety days, I was to sell his house and liquidate his assets.”
“What happened to the proceeds?”
“Everything went to Our Blessed Lady Church.”
Peter ran through the list of churches he knew. Our Blessed Lady had to be one of several lined up on Clifton Avenue, one-stop shopping for the soul. “You have an excellent memory.”
“It was an odd situation. Hard to forget.”
“Andrew strike you as a religious man?”
“Not particularly. As far as I know, he never set foot in the place. I’m sure I have the name of the priest I dealt with in my files. I’ll look it up for you after I get home.”
“How much money was involved?”
“Between the house and his financial assets, in the neighborhood of a quarter mil.”
“That house has to be worth half a million.”
“Today, sure. A fraction of that thirty years ago. But I always wondered about his finances.”
“How so?”
“Andrew’s lifestyle was modest. Modest people accumulate assets, janitors you hear about who squirrel away a million dollars. And he was no janitor. He was always vague about what he did, just said he was a businessman with interests overseas.”
“In my experience, people who say things like that are usually posers living off someone else.”
“I know what you’re talking about. Someone who talks a good game without ever saying anything. That kind of person, there’s a feel, something behind the facade. Gold diggers, social climbers, con men. In my business you learn to spot them. That wasn’t Andrew.
“Most people are nervous when they deal with lawyers. Andrew could have been ordering a Big Mac. He didn’t need to impress anyone. You get a feel for that, too. The guy who walks into your office wearing stained overalls with forty grand in his pocket and forty million in real estate.”
“You pegged Heenan as money under the radar.”
“I did. But his accounts maintained a reasonable cushion and nothing more. Funny thing, the foreign interests, his travel expenses, they never came through me.”
“How do you explain the theoretical missing money?”
Piraino eyed Peter while he took another sip of scotch. “I am unhappy with the prospect of any speculations I make becoming public.”
“This is between you, me, and your scotch. And we both know the scotch will never make it out of this room.”
Piraino barked a laugh. “You’re all right, Pete. My dealings with Andrew were aboveboard, but your typical businessman doesn’t make contingency plans for their sudden disappearance. I wondered if I was maintaining a front for him, and my purpose was to fold his tent when the time came.”
“A front for what?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Whatever it was, there had to be other assets, and none of them in the name Andrew Heenan.”
Kim Freeman pulled two more volumes from the Hughes High School library shelf and added them to the pile Peter held.
“That should do it. If Jenny was here, she’ll be in one of these.”
The stack of yearbooks Peter carried had to weigh more than twenty pounds. He hoped Kim wasn’t feeling chatty. “It will be just like looking at mugshots.”
“I suspect more than a few of these kids wound up in your books. Our records don’t go back to the eighties, but if you find your Jenny, the alumni association might have a current address.”
“This will do for a start.”
Kim ran her fingers over the spines of the books Peter held, confirming dates. “I’ll check these out for you. Call me if I can do anything else.”
Kim headed for the desk. Peter turned for the door. A timid whisper came from the next row of shelves.
“Detective Dourson?”
Stacy Bender leaned against the shelves in the ancient history section, arms wrapped around herself as if she had a stomach ache. She looked as miserable as she had the last time he’d seen her.
Peter set the books on a convenient table. He spoke quietly, as much to soothe her as to avoid attracting attention. “Hey. How are you getting on?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Not so good. When will you arrest Jamal? You said two days.”
Peter sighed. “They reassigned the case. I’m not in charge anymore.”
Stacy’s face froze in a deer-in-headlights, oh-my-god-I’m-gonna-die look.
“They’re still working it, but it’s taking a little longer than expected. We need you to hang in there.”
“Are they gonna arrest me?”
“Stay out of it and you’re clear. I promise.”
“Taneesha’s coming around. She doesn’t understand why I won’t let her in, since mom works evenings and wouldn’t know. Last night she was yelling through the door. I don’t know what to do.”
“I know it’s tough. Look—” He pulled out his wallet, removed a slightly bent business card. “You can go here. There’s safety in numbers.”
Stacy frowned at the card and rubbed at an acne scab on her chin. “Happen? Isn’t that the place where kids make Easter eggs and weird toys?”
“They have programs for teens. It’s a place where kids like you are taking steps to make something of themselves.” He grabbed for a straw. “You’ll learn how to make T-shirts.”
Stacy snorted. “Mine will say ‘loser’ on the front in big fat letters.”
“It will be over soon. Just keep your head down.”
“Can’t I warn Taneesha? She’s still my friend. I don’t want her to get arrested.”
“Does Jamal own a gun?”
Stacy’s mouth popped open, forming an “O.”
“There’s your answer. Bad things will happen if you tell Taneesha. Jamal’s her brother. She’ll tell him, just like you want to tell her. Jamal will get mad and do something to you or your family. Then he’ll change his operation and I’ll have to explain why the taxpayer money we spent building a case to get him off the street got us nothing. And because you warned him, I can’t keep you out of it. You’ll get it from both sides.”
The lip trembled again, violently. “You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t want to scare you, but I need to scare you. Talk to nobody. Tell Taneesha you’re grounded for the rest of your life if you have to. Tell her your sisters will rat you out if you let her in. Your choices are to stay out of it or wind up in more trouble than you ever imagined.”
Stacy’s eyes blazed, furious. She hissed. “I thought you’d help me. I’m sorry I ever talked to you.”
Cheap sneakers squeaked as Stacy spun on her heels, the unspoken “I hate you” hanging in the air.
Chewy butted Lia’s hand as she skimmed emails on her laptop. Obliging, she scratched behind his ears while she read an update from David. Zoe liked the paintings but wanted to have friends for dinner to see what they thought.
Typical, needing a committee to tell you if you wanted something or not. Either that, or Zoe had David install the paintings to dress up her house for a dinner party she planned weeks ago, and she’d tell David to return them Monday with some lame reason why they didn’t fit, like her husband was allergic to lilies and looking at them made him sneeze.
<
br /> It was a trick certain people used to make themselves look wealthier than they were, and it applied to clothing, jewelry, art, and even cars. It didn’t happen often, but every time it did left an indelible memory. If that was Zoe’s plan, her machinations would cost David money as well as waste his time. David would smile and nod because any sign of censure would cost him business.
Here’s hoping Zoe lives among the well-meaning and flighty, not the sneaking and social-climbing.
Thinking of Zoe reminded her of the morning’s ugliness with Susan. She chucked Chewy under the chin. “What do you think, little man? Is it time to talk to Peter?”
Peter’s voice drifted in from the living room. “Get away, rat.”
Peter had a man cave in his apartment where he could concentrate without distractions, but he’d bonded with the leather Morris chair and it was now his preferred place to review files after dinner.
“Lia! Come get the swamp monster.”
Lia rolled her eyes and closed the laptop.
“Coming, dearest.”
Peter sat with a stack of yearbooks in his lap and a beer in one hand, shooing Gypsy away with the other. Unconcerned, Gypsy propped her feet on the coffee table and sniffed a pile of neatly cut paper slips. She licked the pile, then started chewing. She looked up at Lia, confusion in her eyes and paper stuck to her muzzle. Viola snorted from her spot on the floor.
“Lia!” Peter yelled again, eyes glued to Gypsy and unaware Lia was already in the room.
“Watch your beer.”
Peter’s hand jerked up. Chewy sat innocently underneath as if the bottle had never been in danger, though everyone in the room knew he didn’t care what you had in your hand when he head-butted you for a pet.
Lia scooped Gypsy up. “What do you expect? Puppies explore everything with their mouths.” She grabbed a pencil cup off the phone table and handed it to Peter, nodding at the molested paper slips. “You can put those in here.” She settled on the sofa, snuggling Gypsy in her lap. “Can I help?”
Peter gave Gypsy an evil look. “Not if Jaws is a member of your team.”
She held Gypsy up, nose to nose, and was rewarded with a puppy kiss. “He doesn’t understand. Floor for you, girlfriend.” She pulled Susan’s tormented scarf from a basket, dangled it long enough to get Gypsy’s attention and dropped it to the gaping maw. Divested of puppy, she turned expectantly to Peter. “What are we looking for?”
He handed her a book. “Jennys, Jennifers, Jeans, Ginnys, Virginias, or other derivatives. If she has long brown hair, put a star on the bookmark. Two stars if it’s Jenny or Jennifer.” He pointed to a legal pad next to the mauled bookmarks. “Note the year, name, and page number on the master list. I’ll show the matches to Heenan’s neighbor. Maybe she can identify our housekeeper.”
“Sounds like a long shot.”
“It’s a place to start.”
It was companionable, soothing work, requiring concentration and marked only by the sound of turning pages. Lia wondered if every third girl child was named Jennifer when these kids were born, or if it was like your friend buying a red Datsun and suddenly you saw red Datsuns everywhere.
She ran her fingers through the forest of bookmarks sprouting from the top of her current volume. Two dozen? Three? Eyes frying from the tiny type, she flipped absently through the back of the book, stopping when she saw the damage. She made a disgusted sound as she turned a few more pages.
“Kids can be so thoughtless.”
“Graffiti?”
“Someone sliced out random pages.”
“Let me look at that.”
She tilted the book so Peter could see where a page in the activities section had been removed near the spine. It had been a neat job, almost invisible. The shallow cut in the next page indicated it had been done with a stencil knife. Peter took the book, thumbed through the rest of it.
“Four more pages. Wonder if Kim knows about this.”
“Some people hate photos of themselves. I bet if we hunt up the missing pages, we’ll find the same person on each page. Some poor girl immortalized with fake big hair like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.”
Peter puffed out his cheeks, blew audibly. “I didn’t bother with the activities section.” He looked at the stack of completed volumes. “Guess I ought to go through these again.”
“What for? It can’t have anything to do with your case.”
“Just to alert the school to the vandalism. Up to them what they do about it.”
“Speaking of juvenile delinquents, how is your package thief doing?”
Peter took a long pull from his beer. “I saw Stacy today. She hates me.”
“I’m so sorry. Is there anything you can do?”
“Jamal is on Brent now. I’m out of it until Parker sends these bones to Cold Case where they belong, which I’m hoping she’ll do Monday. I laid out the realities for Stacy as gently as I could, and I think she’ll hold. It’s her mother I’m worried about. People who drink as their life’s avocation have big mouths.”
Lia was silent for a moment. Time to bite the bullet. “Speaking of mothers …”
Peter looked up, a question on his face. She dropped her eyes. A fierce Indian chief glared at her from the cover of the yearbook in her lap, an artifact from pre-politically correct times. She traced an index finger around the feathers in his bonnet while Peter waited. Chewy, sensing tension, curled by her feet.
“Susan came to the park today.”
“You didn’t say.”
“I needed time to marinate.”
“What happened?”
“She came to interview Terry about finding the bones. I don’t think she knew I would be there. She was friendly at first. Then she said some things.”
He set his beer aside and joined her on the sofa. His hand was gentle as he pulled hers away from the book. Gentle as he stroked her knuckles with a thumb.
Anger lurked under the calm of his voice. “What things?”
“Look, most of it was silly. She offered to put me on her show—”
Peter’s look of horror made Lia choke on a laugh. “Don’t worry, I turned her down. Then she said I didn’t matter to you because we weren’t married.”
He opened his mouth to protest. She placed the fingers of her free hand to his lips. “That’s the silly part, and I didn’t buy it, not for a minute—” The rest came out in a rush. “—but then she said you never told your family about us, and that meant you didn’t care about me. Only she wasn’t so nice about it.”
Peter squeezed her hand and sighed. “I hope this hasn’t been eating at you.”
“Not exactly.... Maybe a little, partly because I knew she meant to hurt me.”
“And partly because I never told my family about you.”
“I never thought about it before because I never tell my mother anything. But we’re estranged. You talk to your family all the time.”
“If it helps, Abby knows about you.”
“That’s a start.”
“She runs interference for me.”
“She’s a good sister.”
He tapped their clasped hands against his leg, gathering thoughts. “Sometimes … sometimes being the fruit of someone’s loins makes them believe they have proprietary rights over your life, ordained by God. The only defense is distance and silence.”
A long pause, punctuated by the tapping of their joined hands. “I promised to always tell you everything. That doesn’t work with my parents. There’s no way to tell Mom about you that she’ll accept. If I say we’re committed to each other, she’ll wonder why I’m not good enough to pledge your life to.
“If I tell her you have legitimate reasons to distrust marriage as an institution and I’m fine with that, not only would that entail telling her things that are none of her business, it won’t make a dent in her ability to accept our situation. Worst case, she’ll decide you’re broken and nothing will ever change her mind.”
“What’s the best ca
se?”
“She’ll show up for a come to Jesus meeting and she won’t be satisfied until we’re married or she succeeds in grabbing me by my ear and dragging me home.”
“Ouch.”
“As far as Mom is concerned, the only acceptable state of affairs is me married to a nice Christian girl who pumps out babies. And in her book, you hardly qualify as Christian.”
“What about your dad?”
“Dad’s more flexible, but he’s not inclined to get in the way when Mom has the bit in her teeth.”
Something shifted, like a Magic Eye picture—when the big blur of nothing suddenly becomes the Statue of Liberty, or maybe a race car.
“I grew up aching for a nice, normal family. I guess being the scion of a nice, normal family isn’t always wonderful.”
Peter kissed her knuckles, shrugged. They were past the difficult part.
“Only son, oldest child, good student, athlete. They had huge expectations, beyond wanting me to marry a girl they approved of so I could go forth and multiply.
“You had to fight for everything you ever got. I had my life handed to me. I was just fine with it until I realized I hadn’t bothered to think about where I was being led.
“Their plan wasn’t a bad plan, just not right for me. But how do you tell people who love you that you don’t want the best they have to offer? It’s like saying their love isn’t good enough.”
“I thought you left Cave City because Susan dumped you.”
“Everyone thinks that, and I let them. Susan just provided convenient timing. I wasn’t getting with the program, so she went out and found what she wanted. If she hadn’t dumped me, I would have left her. It just would have taken longer.”
“What made you change your mind about her?”
“I didn’t change my mind about her so much as I changed it about myself. Mom’s the church secretary. Dad’s an elder. They raised us on Adam’s rib and everything that goes with it. Then I got a basketball scholarship to UC.”
Peter paused to grab his abandoned beer. “A teammate invited me to his brother’s wedding—this was when Susan was pressuring me long distance about law school. They had a reading full of flowery mixed metaphors that I mostly ignored the way you do when a sermon goes on too long. But one sentence stuck with me: ‘Make not a bond of love.’ It made so little sense to me that someone would read that at a wedding, I had to find out what it meant.”
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