A Credible Threat

by Janet Dawson

Forty minutes later, after a series of dead ends, no answers, and answering machines, I got a helpful teenage male who cheerfully told me his parents were indeed Steve and Leanne Sikowski. He even gave me the address, in a collection of sizable brick homes on big lots west of Indiana Street, out by the Arvada Reservoir. By the time I located the house, in the dark western reaches of the city, it was past seven. But there was a big American sedan and a four-wheel-drive vehicle parked in the double driveway. That meant someone was home.

  Thirty-eight

  NOT THAT IT DID ME ANY GOOD.

  Leanne Haskell Sikowski, a schoolteacher according to the waitress in Longmont, wouldn’t let me through the front door. Instead she preferred to glare at me through the screen mesh, as though she’d like to send me to the principal. She was an older version of the Andi Haskell I remembered, not as tall or slender, but with the same hostility that had radiated from her younger sister when she’d been on the witness stand six years ago.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” she said, her voice icy. Frown lines showed between her eyebrows, accentuated in the harsh overhead glow of the porch light. I guessed that her father-in-law had called to warn her that I might show up on her doorstep. She didn’t seem surprised to see me, only determined not to give me any information.

  “I need to talk with your sister. It’s important. If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t have flown out here from California.”

  “If it’s about that business in California, that’s all in the past.”

  “Sometimes the past can show up.” As I spoke the words I was aware that, to Leanne Sikowski, that’s what I represented. Something in the past, something she was trying to protect her sister from. In some ways I couldn’t blame her. But if I could connect the dots to find Andi Haskell, so could Richard Bradfield. And he knew her better than I ever would.

  “At least contact your sister and ask if she would meet with me,” I said, my voice placating, not showing the frustration I felt. “I understand your wish to protect her, but perhaps it’s a decision she should make herself.” I took one of my business cards from my purse and wrote down the name of the motel and my room number. “This is where I’m staying tonight.”

  Leanne Sikowski reluctantly unlatched the screen door and reached for my card. Her expression didn’t change, though. I wondered if she was taking the card just to get rid of me.

  Whether she talked to her sister or not, Andi Haskell didn’t call me that night. The phone didn’t ring at all, even as I sat on the bed and flipped through channels, finally settling on a movie.

  After breakfast Friday morning I checked out of the motel and headed back up Wadsworth to Broomfield, planning to try Andi Haskell’s mother and aunt again. Maybe they’d returned from their sojourn in the gambling towns of the Colorado Rockies, with more money than they’d had when they left. With luck, I could get to them before Leanne Sikowski called to warn them I was looking for Andi. Luck, I thought with a sigh. I’d had a run of it yesterday in Boulder and Longmont, but it had played out by the time I got to Arvada.

  When I parked outside the house on Emerald Street, I saw a late model Pontiac parked in the driveway. The drapes that had covered the front window the day before were open to admit the morning light. I rang the bell. A moment later the door was opened by a sixtyish woman with short iron-gray hair and glasses with round tortoise-shell frames, wearing a bright blue sweat suit and running shoes. I wasn’t sure if this was Estelle Haskell or Margaret Todd, but she set me straight as soon as I’d asked the question.

  “I’m Mrs. Todd. Everybody calls me Maggie,” she said. “Come on in.”

  The living room was carpeted in beige plush and furnished with an overstuffed gold sofa with a matching chair. There were green plants on a glass-topped coffee table that had been moved under the wide front window in order to take the best advantage of the sun. African violets in ceramic pots crowded the end tables on either side of the sofa. An upright piano rested against the wall opposite the window, its top covered with family pictures. Here was Leanne Sikowski, a man who looked like a younger version of his car salesman father, and two teenage boys.

  And here was a five-by-seven of Andi Haskell, certainly more current than my memory of her. The blond hair was styled differently, much shorter, and she wasn’t alone in the photograph. She was with a dark-haired man who had a round friendly face, and there was a baby on her lap, a little girl about a year old, with her mother’s blond hair and her father’s brown eyes. So Andi had married and had a child.

  “Estelle’s down in the basement, doing laundry. We’ve been away for a couple of days. Got back late last night. Come on, it’s this way.”

  I followed Maggie Todd through the dining room, with its plain square table covered with a frilly white tablecloth, and as she made a right turn into the kitchen, which had a smaller harvest-type table that looked as though it got more use than the one in the dining room. Houses in Colorado usually had basements, and just past the door that led out to the garage were some carpeted stairs leading down to this subterranean level.

  “Estelle,” Maggie hollered. “You got company.” Then her voice returned to its normal tone. “What did you say your name was? Jeri? Is that short for Geraldine?”

  “Jerusha, actually. It was my grandmother’s name.”

  “Jerusha. Say, that’s pretty. You want some coffee? I got a fresh pot here, and some coffee cake that Estelle made this morning.” She didn’t wait for an affirmative. Instead she opened the cupboard next to the stove and took out a cup and a plate. I helped myself to the coffee as she cut me a wedge of the streusel-topped coffee cake.

  “I can have a cup with you and Estelle,” she said, glancing at the digital clock on the microwave oven, “then I have to go over to the Senior Center for my tai chi class.”

  We pulled out chairs and sat companionably at the kitchen table. “It’s delicious,” I said after the first bite.

  “Oh, Estelle’s a wonderful cook. Not me. I’m handy around the house, though. Repairs and painting and keeping up the garden. After our husbands died, the only sensible thing for these two widow women to do was to move in with each other.”

  I heard footsteps coming up the carpeted stairs, then Estelle Haskell rounded the corner. She was older than her sister, more white-headed, slower in her movements. She wore brown slacks and a white blouse, both of which seemed loose on her slender frame.

  “Who is it, Maggie?” she asked her sister, then she stopped and peered at me through a pair of bifocals. “Do I know you? No, I don’t know you.”

  I got to my feet. “Mrs. Haskell, I’m Jeri Howard. A private investigator from Oakland, California. I’d like to talk with you about your daughter Andrea.”

  “A private eye.” Maggie Todd straightened in her chair. “You didn’t say that at the front door. That’s fascinating. How did you get into that line of work?”

  Mrs. Haskell wasn’t the least bit interested in how I got into the detective business. All that had registered from my introduction were her daughter’s name and the city of Oakland. Her blue eyes took on the same suspicious look I’d seen in her elder daughter’s face last night. “What do you want with my daughter?”

  “If I could just talk with her—”

  The old woman cut me off with a sharp gesture and an even sharper voice. “She’s left that part of her life behind. She got tired of that mess out there in California, all that traffic and the ridiculous cost of living and the wrong kind of people.”

  I wondered who Estelle Haskell deemed the wrong kind of people. Were they black, brown, poor, or simply not from Colorado? Was Richard Bradfield the wrong kind of people? I picked up the coffee and took a swallow before speaking carefully. “What did your daughter tell you about California, about her job and the man she worked for?”

  “Why, she got laid off,” she declared. “After she’d worked for that fellow for years, and been such a good assistant. And she couldn’t find another job. So she sold her condo at a
loss, because of those ridiculous real estate prices. Then she came back here where she belongs. With her family.”

  It sounded as though Andi Haskell hadn’t exactly been truthful when she told her mother why she’d moved back to Colorado and the bosom of her family. After another sip of coffee I set the cup on the kitchen table, conscious that Maggie Todd was looking at me speculatively through her round glasses.

  “Something has come up that I need to discuss with Andrea,” I told them.

  Mrs. Haskell dismissed me imperiously. “She doesn’t want to talk with you, or anyone from those days. And don’t you keep trying to find her. She’s married now, and I’m not going to tell you what her name is. You just go back to California and leave my daughter alone.”

  She waved her hand in the direction of the front door, and I took that as my cue to exit. “I’ll walk you out,” Maggie Todd said, standing and bouncing a little on the soles of her running shoes. “Got to get over to the Senior Center.”

  Neither of us said anything until we were outside, she with her car keys in her hand. “Do you know what happened in California?” I asked her. “I’d like to know, to see if your version jibes with mine.”

  “Yes, I do know.” Maggie Todd’s face turned thoughtful. “So does Estelle, though I think she’s come to believe that fairy tale she told you. That’s what she told all her bridge-playing cronies, and every time she tells it, she believes it’s the truth.” She paused and jingled the keys in her hand, her tai chi class momentarily forgotten.

  “I know my niece was involved with that man she worked for, Richard something-or-other. He was a crooked businessman and got charged with something related to his financial shenanigans. Andrea said that he went to jail for that. And for harassing some poor woman, his sister-in-law. I’m not clear on why he was harassing this woman.”

  “She sued him for custody of his daughter, and won. Did Andrea tell you he was a suspect in his wife’s murder?”

  “No.” The older woman looked horrified. “Why wasn’t he charged with that?”

  “He had an alibi for the night the murder was committed. Your niece.”

  “You think she lied?” The question came in a subdued whisper.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Why have you come here? Why are you trying to find Andrea?”

  “Because this man—Richard Bradfield—is out of prison now. Andi alibied him for the night his wife was murdered. When she testified in court about his business, her testimony was instrumental in his conviction for fraud. I’m convinced that Bradfield is harassing people who helped put him in prison. I’m convinced because I’m one of those people. And so is your niece. I think Audi is in danger, Mrs. Todd. Won’t you at least let me warn her?”

  She opened the door of her car but made no move to slide into the driver’s seat. After a sidelong glance at the house, she turned to me. “Her name’s Andrea Wood now. She works in the administrative office at Boulder Community Hospital.”

  Thirty-nine

  I DROVE BACK TO BOULDER, COMPLETING THE triangle my rental car had drawn since yesterday. Boulder Community Hospital was a tan brick building on the west side of North Broadway, backing onto a park. I left the rental in the lot, next to a sign that warned me the structure had been built in the Goose Creek flood plain and the lot was subject to flooding.

  Inside the hospital, I approached a volunteer who directed me to the hospital’s business office. I didn’t find Andrea Wood there, but a cheery-voiced coworker with a name tag that identified her as Marilyn said, “You just missed her. She went to lunch.”

  Belatedly I glanced at my watch. It was nearly noon. “Any idea where? Maybe I can catch up.”

  “Well, I’m not sure.” Marilyn looked at the calendar on Andi’s desk. “This says Pour la France, noon. You know where that is?” I shook my head. “Downtown on Pearl Street Mall, around Tenth, I think. It’s not far, about seven blocks. Andrea walked, I’m sure. Parking’s so bad down there you’d be crazy to take your car.”

  I took Marilyn’s word and set off in the direction of Boulder’s main business district. As I walked I noticed patches of dirty snow at the curbs and the edge of a nearby parking lot. All the vehicles seemed to be stouthearted, mountain-climbing, four-wheel drives, with ski racks and bike racks, dusty and dirty with the residue of the filthy winter slush. The reason that the owners of these stalwart vehicles hadn’t washed them was that this pleasant sunny day was an anomaly. Those tiny buds taking a risk on the ends of bare branches were fair game for a late spring snowstorm.

  I reached the Pearl Street Mall and stopped to get my bearings. I was a couple of blocks west of the courthouse, where I’d begun this search the day before. I asked a passerby where Pour la France was and set off in the direction indicated. I crossed Eleventh Street, saw the restaurant’s sign, and slowed my pace. It wasn’t quite warm enough, at least not in Colorado, for tables to be set up on sidewalks. As I walked past the restaurant I spotted two women seated at a table for two near the front window. One of them looked very much as she had in the photograph I’d seen at her mother’s house earlier today. Andi Haskell, short blond hair combed back off her face, wore a long gray skirt, boots, and an oversized blue sweater. I saw a gray coat with a hood draped over the back of her chair.

  It looked as though they’d just been seated, chatting over the tops of the menus as the server showed up with glasses of water. I had some time to kill. On the other side of Tenth Street, a few doors down, I saw Peaberry’s Coffee. I bought myself a latte and a lemon bar and sat at one of the coffeehouse’s outdoor tables, keeping one eye on the entrance of Pour la France.

  I had heard Boulder referred to as Little Berkeley, but since I was familiar with the real Berkeley, I was more aware of differences rather than similarities. University towns were alike in that they were full of students and the students all seemed to be carrying books in backpacks. But these kids were tan and fresh-faced, looking as though they belonged on the ski slopes instead of in class. They certainly appeared less world-weary, and less diverse, than their Telegraph Avenue counterparts.

  Finishing the lemon bar, tart enough to bring tears to my eyes, I walked back toward the restaurant and saw Audi and her companion still in conversation over sandwiches. I crossed Pearl Street and skulked on the other side, consuming the rest of my latte as I examined the display in the window of a mystery bookstore called The Rue Morgue. Finally, as I was disposing of my cup in a nearby trash can, I saw Andi, now wearing her coat, and her lunch companion come out of Pour la France and walk up Pearl Street in the direction of Broadway. They parted at the corner, where Andi hugged her friend, then turned and walked briskly back toward the hospital.

  I caught up with her as she crossed Mapleton Avenue. When she heard my voice saying her name, that old name, she froze. Then she turned slowly and stared at me, startled blue eyes widening over the thick gray wool.

  “I know who you are,” she said, as though confronted by a ghost. “I saw you at the trial. You worked for that private investigator. How... how did you find me?”

  “Your aunt told me.”

  “Damnation.” The word exploded from her. “She knows she’s not supposed to say anything.”

  “Like your mother or your sister,” I said. “And they didn’t. Fortunately, I was able to convince your aunt that this is important.”

  She huddled deep into her coat, whirled, and started walking again, up Broadway, the heels of her boots making rapid clicks on the sidewalk. I followed, keeping pace with her. We were still a couple of blocks from the hospital, but we were covering ground.

  “Look, I know your name is Andrea Wood now. You’re married, you have a child. I don’t like upsetting your life, but I think you should know. Richard Bradfield is out of prison.”

  She stopped at the next corner, waiting as a car made a right turn off the side street onto Broadway. “What has that got to do with me?” she asked as she stepped off the curb.

>   “He’s harassing people again. Little things like hacking the tops off lemon trees, just the way he did before.” From her indrawn breath I knew that caught her attention. We approached another corner, this one with a traffic light that showed an amber Don’t Walk signal. “It occurred to me that Bradfield might be after anyone who helped put him in prison.”

  “I didn’t help put him in prison.” Her silhouette was repeated in the window of the florist’s shop on the corner. “You did.”

  “What about all that information about the penny stock deal?”

  “I had no idea that he was involved in that scheme, or any of the others.” Impatient, she punched the button decorated with a walk signal and gazed up at the light, willing it to turn green. “I didn’t realize the significance of what was in those file folders until later, when I had to testify in court.”

  “I don’t think people like Bradfield make such fine distinctions. You don’t want him, or anyone from those days, to know where you are. That tells me something. You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” she asked as the walk signal flashed. We crossed the street.

  “I certainly am. You see, my lemon tree was one of those that got decapitated. I think we should talk, Andi.”

  “I have to get back to work. I’m late.” She stopped and glanced at her watch, and I did the same. It was after one. But Andi’s feet didn’t seem to be moving just yet. She stood there, looking at me with narrowed eyes, as though she were trying to make a decision. “I get off at five. Maybe... maybe I could leave early.”

  I looked at her, trying to guess if she’d take the opportunity provided by the next four hours to disappear. If she did, I’d have to start hunting all over again. But hassling her on her job didn’t seem like the best way to get her to talk.

  Should I trust her? Did I have a choice?

  “I’ll be in the hospital lobby at four-thirty.”

  Forty