by Alexi Venice
She says I can drink wine again. Yay me. “Okay. I’ll stop smoking. Thanks for loving me enough to care.”
“I’m laying my foot down, right here and now.” Small tremors tainted Jen’s voice.
“Yes. No one except you orders me around, and I like it.”
“No one but me loves you this much. We’re going to be married, and I want to live happily ever after with you. Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all. I want to live happily ever after with you, too.” Amanda leaned in and brushed Jen’s lips. “I saw your poem about love last night.” Move away from smoking.
Jen’s eyes sparked with surprised. “Too gushy, right?”
Amanda grabbed Jen by the shoulders. “Not at all. I loved every word. God, Jen, the emotions you put on the page. They take my breath away.”
A humble smile replaced Jen’s frown.
Amanda tipped up Jen’s chin with her finger. “Would you consider reading it at our wedding?”
Jen closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Might be too embarrassing.”
“Okay. Well, think about it. Speaking of which, have we set a date yet?”
Jen turned and flopped onto her back, resting her head on the pillow. “No. We should probably talk about that.”
“Over coffee?” Amanda suggested.
“Sure.”
They stumbled out to the kitchen in pre-dawn light, and Amanda dumped and poured coffee and water into Jen’s pot. They had only a few more minutes of couple-time before Kristin awoke. Amanda turned and snuggled into Jen, who had a soft throw from the sofa around her shoulders. She opened her arms wide and wrapped it around Amanda’s back. They leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffee to brew.
“When do you want to get married?” Amanda asked against Jen’s neck as she kissed it.
“I don’t know. We probably need to reserve a place for the reception a year in advance.”
“That’s too far away,” Amanda said between kisses. “I want to tie the knot sooner.”
“That’s the way I feel, too, but we need to invite certain people.” Jen’s voice quivered.
“Will your family come from Wisconsin?” A kiss on the jugular. A kiss on Jen’s throat. A kiss where her neck met her shoulder.
“I hope so. I haven’t really told them about our engagement yet. I was sort of hoping to do it in person, but we never see them.”
“That needs to change. Let’s go for a visit.”
Jen leaned back, so she could see Amanda’s face. “Are you serious? You’re not too busy at work?”
“I’ll make the time. How about a week from now? Not this weekend, but next?”
“Didn’t you say that’s when Chance and Kip are having their party?”
“Right. I already forgot. Let’s visit your family the weekend after that.”
“That sounds terrific.”
“It’s a date,” Amanda said. “Speaking of family, Jack and Chloe want us to come to their house for dinner and stay over. Nate and Heidi and the kids will be there. Do you want to go?”
“Absolutely. Kristin loves them, and she needs to bond with her older cousins. What are we supposed to bring?”
“Bring? I didn’t ask. I’m sure mom and Heidi will have the food covered.”
“I’m sure they will, too, but I want to contribute. How about some lemon bars? I have a Tupperware full of them in the freezer. I made a batch last weekend.”
“Seriously? You just happen to have lemon bars ready to go? You’re like Super Woman in the kitchen.”
Jen smiled. “Kinda like you’re Super Woman in bed.” She kissed Amanda’s forehead. “I’ll text Chloe today about the menu. I can bring some rolls for breakfast tomorrow morning, too.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Can we get married soon?” Amanda asked.
“I want that—more than you know.”
At that moment, they heard Kristin calling for Jen.
“Want me to go?” Amanda asked.
“No. She’s in a new stage about wanting only me in the morning.” Jen left—with her blanket—leaving Amanda alone with the coffee pot, so she went in search of her own throw and found another in a different color. She returned to the kitchen and prepared two cups of coffee then turned on the TV.
The first image on the news was Carlos Montiago being delivered to the Stanford Psychiatric Hospital in the back of a Palo Alto police car. The images were anything but helpful to Kara Montiago’s campaign. The news displayed Kara Montiago’s formal statement on the screen, while Kip Moynihan read it aloud: “It is with a sad and heavy heart that Candidate Kara Montiago confirms that her husband, Carlos, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for confidential treatment. She will visit him daily and pray for a rapid recovery.”
Well, Chance did a good job writing the short statement, Amanda thought. Now his boyfriend is reading it on the news. Small world. The video switched to the Montiago mansion, which had a gated entry, a substantial hedge in front of a black wrought-iron fence, and a small army of security hovering on the driveway.
The news continued with a brief mention of a homicide on Potrero Hill. They still weren’t releasing Jared Carlisle’s name, but they did say that he worked at Tyche International, the tech giant in Palo Alto. No one at the news desk drew an inference between Jared Carlisle’s murder and Carlos Montiago’s sudden admission to the Stanford Psych Hospital.
Amanda stared at the TV, not paying attention to the next story, picturing how the conversation between Kara and Carlos might have gone down yesterday. “My ex-lover was killed. I assume I’m being framed for murder because he made a report to the SFPD that I sexually assaulted him. Are you okay with the fact that I fooled around on you? Will you stand by my side while I campaign for President?”
What a bomb to drop on your spouse. “Oh, and by the way, I’ve slept with a dozen other men too.” Carlos had to have been devastated.
Or, did he already suspect that she had been sleeping around? Spouses have a way of figuring these things out. After all, Jen was jealous of Roxy the minute she met her. She intuited that I was tempted by Roxy.
Jen and Kristin interrupted Amanda’s reverie. She held her arms open for them. “Good morning, sweet pea.”
Kristin smiled, her nook dangling out of her mouth.
“I poured a cup of coffee for you,” Amanda said to Jen.
“Thanks.”
“Do you want me to take Kristin to daycare, so you can go for a run on the beach?”
Jen’s eyes lit up. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
“Deal.” Jen placed Kristin in a big girl chair for breakfast.
“I just have to shower and change. Frank will be here in 30 minutes,” Amanda said.
“We’ll be ready, won’t we, honey?” Jen asked Kristin, as she poured juice in a sippy cup.
***
Amanda and Frank dropped Kristin at daycare and still made it to the Hall before nine. Amanda hoped it was something she could do more often for Jen. Kristin hadn’t fussed at all, actually enjoying the ride in Amanda’s car. Surprising both Amanda and Kristin, Frank sang along to the Barenaked Ladies singing Ninja, one of the songs on the children’s album. He had a beautiful singing voice.
No sooner had Amanda situated herself at her desk and started reading emails than Tommy burst through her door sporting another day of beard growth. At least he had taken her advice and shaved his neck. “Did you see the news this morning?”
“Oh yes. All about Carlos being committed to the Psych Hospital,” she said.
“We need to interview him.” Tommy paced in front of Amanda’s desk. “I called the Director of the Unit, but she told me that patient rights trump our need for an interview.”
“It’s a shame that word conjures up the President now. Please don’t use it in my presence.”
“What?” He stopped pacing and looked at her.
“Trump.”
“Whatever. What about the interview?”
“The Director is right. Patient rights prevail.”
“I insisted she give me the name and phone number of the hospital legal counsel. I was thinking you could call him and work out a deal.”
“A deal?” she asked. “What kind of deal?”
“The kind where we won’t charge the lawyer for obstruction, as long as he allows us a few minutes with Montiago.”
“You’re so full of shit. Now you want me to threaten a fellow member of the bar? That’s not going to happen, but if you want me to call him, I will.”
“Yeah. Let’s do it right now.”
“Don’t get belligerent while we’re on the phone. Let me do the talking.”
He sighed and handed her the number.
Amanda dialed while Tommy hovered over her desk, staring at the speakerphone.
A receptionist answered, and after Amanda identified herself, the receptionist transferred Amanda to the hospital attorney.
“Justin Thalacker, Stanford Legal,” he said.
Amanda introduced Tommy and herself.
“What can I do for you?”
“We’re investigating a homicide, and we’d like to talk to a patient on your Psych Unit.”
“Is the patient on a voluntary or involuntary commitment?” he asked.
“Involuntary.”
“Has anyone asked the patient if he wants to talk to you?”
“No. I didn’t get past your Department Director,” Tommy said.
“I see,” Thalacker said. “I can talk to her and have her ask the patient. You understand that the patient has rights, though. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, he doesn’t have to.”
“We know. We just want you to check. It’s important,” Amanda said.
“Is he a suspect? Do we have a safety issue for staff and other patients?” Thalacker asked.
“No. Not that we know of,” Amanda said, looking at Tommy and inclining her head.
“Because if he were a suspect, I’d be asking you to post a police officer on the Unit or arrest him,” Thalacker said.
“No need for either of those actions,” Tommy said, rubbing the mostly brown whiskers on his chin while returning Amanda’s curious stare.
“All right. Good to know,” Thalacker said. “In that case, give me your number. I’ll call you back after I’ve spoken to the Department Director.”
Amanda supplied her number, and they rang off.
“Carlos isn’t a suspect, is he?” Amanda asked.
“Maybe he should be. Give me a motive.”
“Carlisle slept with his wife,” she said.
“Yeah, but Carlos supposedly didn’t learn about her affair until yesterday, after Carlisle was murdered,” Tommy said.
“That’s Kara’s version,” Amanda said. “What if he followed her to her apartment and saw them together several months ago?”
“If he was in a jealous rage, he would’ve killed Carlisle the first time he saw them. He wouldn’t have waited until three months later, after they’d broken off the affair.”
“Valid point. What if his motive wasn’t jealousy?” Amanda asked.
“What else could it be?” Tommy asked.
“What if he’s protecting Kara from being blackmailed by Carlisle?” Amanda asked, the alacrity in her tone energizing her theory.
“That would mean two things,” Tommy said. “First, that Kara was, indeed, blackmailed; and second, that she told Carlos about all of her indiscretions. Do we think those things are true when Kara said he didn’t know yesterday?”
“Maybe Kara was playing us,” Amanda said. “I just want to open my mind to the possibility that Carlos broke down not because Kara told him she was having an affair and being framed for murder, but because he killed Carlisle, and is now trying to hide behind the locked doors of the Psych Unit, so we can’t interview him. Maybe he thinks we’ll get wrapped up in the case and forget about him.”
“Fair enough. I’ll keep that in the back of my mind,” Tommy said. “I have to check on the officers who are calling Montiago’s former lovers. See if they’ve found out anything. I also need an update on the security video from Goat Hill Pizza and The Scarlet Huntington. Hopefully, Navarro’s guys watched it last night.”
“What about the video from Jared Carlisle’s security system?”
“Navarro is still trying to recover it.”
“Ahh,” she said. “Have you heard anything back from the forensics lab on the Dunhill cigarette that Frank found in Carlisle’s driveway?”
“Not yet.”
“Speaking of cigarettes, I have to give you my pack.” Amanda fished in her bag until she found her pack of Marlboros. She tossed it to Tommy. “Jen busted me.”
“Busted, huh?”
“Yesss,” she groaned.
He smiled, having been there himself.
She gave him a yes-I-made-this-bed-and-I’m-happy-to-sleep-in-it smile.
He dropped her pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket and left.
Amanda kicked off her heels, pulled out her bottom desk drawer and rested her feet on the side. She leaned back in her chair to contemplate the angles of Jared Carlisle’s murder from Carlos Montiago’s point of view. What’s going on inside his head?
Chapter 20
The Hall of Justice
Later that afternoon
Amanda’s desk phone rang, the display indicating it was Tommy. She hit the speaker button. “Hi, Tommy. If you’re calling to see if I’ve heard from the Stanford Hospital attorney about interviewing Carlos, I haven’t.”
“That’s not why I’m calling. We need to talk. Your office or mine?” he asked.
“I need to stretch my legs. Can I come to yours?”
“Sure.” He hung up.
As Amanda walked through the DA’s Office, Jeremy stopped her in the hallway. “Hey, Amanda. We’re on a trial break right now.”
“How’s the defense case going?” she asked.
“They’re leveraging the dog ashes—no disrespect—to argue reasonable doubt about not only the fire accelerant, but also all of our evidence.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said.
“It isn’t your fault. Listen, are you going to be around? I’d like to run my closing argument by you.”
“Of course. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have to talk to Tommy about our new homicide investigation.”
“Okay. We should adjourn around 4:30. I’ll look for you then.”
“Perfect.” As she left Jeremy behind, Amanda’s heels clicked on the polished tile floor and echoed in the drab hallway. She pushed through the glass doors and passed the empty office that he was using as the clandestine evidence room for their investigation. There was a sign on the door that said, “Keep door locked. See Det. Vietti.”
She knocked on his open door and entered. “Hey Tommy.”
He was staring at a large bulletin board with photos pinned to it. She recognized Jared Carlisle’s pictures: the first of him at his house on the floor, deceased; and the second from work when he was alive. The other 11 men were unknown to her, but she compared them to the executive team photo Frank had removed from Kara’s love nest—which was resting on a table nearby—and noticed they were the same men. There were also photos of Vincent Voss and Carlos Montiago on the board.
“What’s going on?” She stood shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing at the board.
“Looks like we could have a bigger investigation on our hands. One of Montiago’s ex-lovers is officially MIA. This guy—here.” Tommy tapped a man’s photo on the board.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t report for work this week at Tyche, and no one seems to know where he is,” Tommy said.
“Are you suggesting that he’s been killed, too?”
“At this point, nothing would surprise me. I mean, think about it. Why would Jared Carlisle be the only guy someone hired to smear Kara? If she had a dozen former lovers, why not p
ay several to allege sexual harassment?”
“And, if one didn’t play ball, or turned on you, then you’d have to kill him?” Amanda asked, a note of incredulity in her voice. “That sounds a bit extreme, don’t you think?”
“Maybe she hired her own hitman to kill the ex-lovers who accused her,” he said.
Amanda wrinkled her adorable nose in disagreement. “Kara doesn’t strike me as the type who hires a hitman. I think it’s more likely that she has a guardian angel who’s taking his job a little too far to protect her.”
“That could be one of several people who are committed to getting her elected,” Tommy said.
“Maybe, but her husband, Carlos, has the most at stake,” Amanda said. “Killing Jared Carlisle for attempting to smear Kara would be very satisfactory for Carlos. Not only would he be killing the man who fucked his wife, but also the man who’s now trying to fuck his wife.”
“That motive works for me,” Tommy said. “What do we do about him being penned up in the Psych Ward?”
“We wait.”
“I don’t like waiting. Time kills all evidence. Write that in caps on the wall of your office: TIME KILLS ALL EVIDENCE.”
“That’s ridiculous. Time might affect memory and such, but it doesn’t ‘kill all evidence.’ Not with video surveillance and DNA, anyway.”
“Un-fucking-fair,” Tommy grumbled. “I want his cell phone and billing records.”
Amanda stared at him for a minute, thinking. “Why can’t we ask Kara Montiago for access to their cell phone records?”
“Good idea.”
“And maybe he left his cell phone at home when the police committed him. How about we ask Kara for that, too?”
“That’s an idea I can get behind,” he said.
“What about our other evidence? Like the surveillance video from Jared Carlisle’s house? Did Navarro recover that?”
Tommy groaned. “No. It’s been erased.”
“Erased?! By whom?”
“We don’t know. His entire hard drive has been scrubbed. Nothing’s on it.”
“What about the Cloud? Wouldn’t his security system be saved on the iCloud?”
“Who knows? Nobody understands the Cloud, least of all, me. Navarro is still trying to figure it out. I connected him with the techies at Tyche who helped Carlisle design and install the system.”
