The CEO Came DOA (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Book 5)

by Heather Haven

  “Watch your manners, Marty. As to what I want, I want the prototype back. I know Sharise gave it to you and I’m here to collect it. Oh yes, and I’m taking you in as an accessory to murder. In summation, I’m not moving my car.”

  He stopped at the sight of the gun. I saw him assess me in an instant. Eyes searching in all directions, he hesitated. Then with a quick pivot, Marty bolted from the garage out into the rain. I hobbled after him as fast as I could and saw him running down the driveway. Just as he passed some tall brush, Gurn sprang out and tackled him.

  I tucked the gun back in my pocket and moved toward the two men writhing on the ground. Gurn had his offensive/defensive moves solid, but I could see Marty did, too. He leapt on top of my man, who let out a ‘whomp’ sound, as air was pushed from his lungs. Gurn quickly got the upper hand, and shoved Marty off with his legs. Marty was thrown to the ground, but jumped up like a cougar. He unsheathed a small knife hidden inside one of his pockets.

  Gurn jumped to his feet, as well, and together they did the crouching down, circling routine, where each man wants to get neither too close nor too far away from the other. They circled once or twice, with Marty doing a few haphazard lunges at Gurn’s groin. I soon neared them, but neither man seemed to notice.

  With Marty’s back to me, I waited until he circled directly in front. Then I flipped my crutch over, and taking the bottom of it with both hands, pulled my arms back and swung. I let him have it, Babe Ruth style. Sharise had given me the idea the night before, and at this juncture, it was a good one. The knife clattered to the pavement in one direction while Marty tumbled in the other, rolling over once then lay still on the wet pavement.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I was hoping you’d do something like that,” Gurn said, still breathing hard. “Man, he was a tough one.”

  “You’re welcome. Here,” I said as I thrust a long plastic tie at him. “I found this on one of the shelves in the garage. It should keep his hands tied.”

  Gurn pushed Marty on his stomach, put one of the man’s wrists on top of the other, and looped the tie over the man’s hands and pulled tight. I knelt down in the rain to search the man’s pockets.

  “What are you doing, hon? You can’t do that.” Gurn’s face looked shocked.

  “Sure I can. Before Frank gets here, I want to get the prototype back. Without it, Read-Out might go under. And that can’t happen. Future generations of Alvarez women are counting on this chip. I’m pretty sure he has it on him. He wouldn’t have been so quick to run away if he didn’t.”

  “Lee, that’s against the law. Tampering with evidence.”

  I ignored the love of my life, pulled out Marty’s wallet, looked inside, and found a small, Saran wrapped, glass-cased iridescent square. “Aha! Here it is.”

  “If they ask me, this didn’t happen,” Gurn said.

  “Good, because if they ask me, that’s my answer, too.” I returned the wallet to Marty’s pants pocket and shoved the small square inside my bra, just as my phone rang. I looked at the incoming call.

  “Hi, Frank, perfect timing. Where are you?” I listened for a moment. “Great. Come on in. We’ve got your accomplice; Marty, the chauffeur. He’s the one who helped Sharise the night Collier was murdered. But I’ll explain it all to you when you get here.”

  I disconnected and turned to Gurn. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the groundskeepers, an elderly Asian man dressed in a slicker and hat, leaning on a rake and staring at us.

  “There’s a witness,” said Gurn, waving to the man. The man hesitated then waved back. “Might have seen you ransacking Marty’s pants. I’ll come and visit you in jail.”

  “He’s straining to see us, like he’s nearsighted. Probably blind as a bat without his glasses.”

  “Maybe you need some. He’s wearing glasses.”

  “Never mind. Here comes Frank with Skye and Katie.”

  We work crazy hours in Silicon Valley; my wife says

  we're all kind of diseased in some way. We're totally

  obsessive compulsive - when we see an idea, we're like,

  'let me in, it's so much fun.'

  Tony Fadell

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Skye’s asleep.”

  Katie stood in the doorway of the massive stainless steel kitchen. Several dozen orange and yellow blown glass orbs, probably more Chihuly, hung at different lengths over designated areas. They gave what would have been an otherwise cold setting warmth and light. Three shelves containing cookbooks, worn and well-used, added a very human touch.

  “I promised to get her up in time to meet the team and start setting up the display for the contest,” Katie added.

  “The digital fly-fishing,” I said.

  “It’ll help keep her mind off what’s been going on,” said Katie, as she walked into the kitchen toward us.

  Gurn, Frank, and I sat around a long granite island watching the Collier private chef make perfect crepes, one at a time. It was mesmerizing. Perfectly golden and round, Chef Walt would fold them in fourths, and plop them on a large platter in the warming oven. Canadian bacon sizzled on a skillet, filling the air with another mouthwatering smell. It was all I could do to keep from drooling on the counter. I turned to the approaching woman.

  “How is Skye doing?”

  “Better than I thought she would.” Katie smiled at us, running fingers through her short, dark hair. “But I haven’t told her yet about the latest developments, her mother’s death.”

  “I hope she can get past her mother killing her father. That’s a lot to handle.” Frank’s tone was more of a father rather than a police officer. He’s a man who’s never lost his heart, no matter what he’s seen of the world.

  “I haven’t known Miss Skye long,” said Chef Walt in his soft German accent, “but she strikes me as a child who is better for knowing the truth of a situation.” Wearing his dress whites, he flipped another crepe.

  “Regardless, I don’t want to say anything until we know one way or another,” said Katie. “It’s all so heartbreaking.”

  “Yes, it is,” Frank said.

  “But kids can be pretty resilient,” Gurn said to no one in particular, hair still damp from a recent shower. He looked at Katie. “Thanks for letting me take a shower. I was covered in gravel and wet leaves.”

  “My pleasure, but tell me, do you always carry a change of clothes in the trunk of your car?”

  Katie smiled at Gurn. She took a seat next to him at the highly polished, white granite island, which also served as an eating counter.

  “Be prepared, that’s a scout’s loyal creed.” Gurn swiveled his chair to face Chef Walt, and then not so subtly changing the subject. “Those look delicious.”

  “I’ve discovered crepes are welcomed any time of the day.” Chef Walt answered, sprinkling the crepes with powdered sugar.

  He filled a second platter with the crispy bacon. Homemade strawberry and apricot jams already sat on the counter, along with a bowl of fresh cut persimmons. Aromatic coffee stayed hot in a nearby carafe. I poured myself a cup.

  Katie turned to me, suddenly anxious. “Do you really think Sharise is drowned? Is this over?”

  “That’s what they’re saying,” I answered.

  “Yes, but what do you think?” Katie persisted.

  “Sharise’s body could be found any minute now. Marty has been arrested, carted off to the hoosegow, and is already naming names. The Scopolamine tree at Sharise’s house has been chopped down and all the chemically altered drugs confiscated from her property.”

  “And as soon as I have a few of these crepes,” said Frank, “I’m off to Tiburon to make sure everything between both Marin and Santa Clara counties is nice and legal. This has all the signs of being over.”

  “Ladies and gentleman, brunch,” said Chef Walter, bringing the two platters to the counter, and serving us family style. He joined us at the counter and ‘opened the ceremony’ by picking up a crepe with his fork.

  We dug
in, making appropriate noises. Our mood lightened noticeably. Good food can do that to a crowd, especially any crowd I hang out with.

  “Chef Walt has only been with us for eighteen months, but he makes the best crepes this side of St. Louis,” announced Katie, also snagging a crepe with her fork. “Everybody says so.”

  “Allowing for a slight exaggeration, Katie,” he replied with a laugh, watching the nanny.

  Chef Walt was a rotund man in his early forties, and follicly challenged, as the saying goes. But no side hairs combed over a bare pate. Bald and loving it.

  Katie giggled and looked away, but not before a few sparks flew. Gurn saw it, too, and grinned at me. Maybe there would be love in this household sooner than anyone thought. Or maybe I just had romance on the brain, me getting married in two days.

  Gurn shoved a forkful of crepe dripping with apricot jam into his mouth then turned to me. “So should we pick up on what we were talking about before we got distracted by food?”

  “You mean how Sharise managed to be in two places at the same time?” Frank looked at me. “It’s a pretty unique crime, that’s for sure.”

  “I want every detail,” Gurn said, chewing his food. “The things I miss when I’m gone. Makes me never want to leave your side again.” He winked at me.

  Katie took several pieces of Canadian bacon on her plate along with two more crepes. She had a healthy appetite; a perfect match for a chef. Between bites she asked, “I want every detail, too, Lee. How did you figure it out?”

  I tried to lasso my mind and bring it back from the crepes. “I was always led on by Skye’s certainty that Sharise committed the crime, no matter how impossible it seemed. And I kept running out of suspects. But we have Tugger to thank for showing me the way. He’s my cat,” I explained.

  “Your cat is a detective?” Chef Walt stopped eating and looked at me in disbelief.

  “Let’s call him a junior detective.” I said.

  Gurn shook his head and laughed. “I should have known Tugger was somehow involved in this.”

  “There’s a new cat in the neighborhood that looks enough like Tugger to be mistaken for him,” I said. “That is, from a distance and if you didn’t know the real deal. For several minutes I thought Ralph was Tugger.”

  “Tugger is the name of your cat and Ralph is the name of the other cat,” said Chef Walt, trying to clarify the feline lineup.

  “Exactly. And sometimes you see what you expect to see and not what…or who…is really there.”

  Katie and Chef Walt looked confused. Frank just laughed.

  “Don’t worry, folks,” said Gurn, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “She’ll get around to telling us how she worked it out.”

  The chef leaned back with a grin. Katie nodded. I cleared my throat and went on.

  “You see, once I realized I’d been fooled by which cat was which, I saw that Sharise and her stand in, June Mitchell, traded places after the last concert in Germany. They were careful not to be seen by anyone but Ty Deavers, her manager, who was also in on the switch.”

  “So June became Sharise, and Sharise became June,” said Gurn. “Pretty clever.”

  “How could they possibly do that?” Katie’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  “After their last concert the band and crew were scheduled to arrive in America the following day, Sunday, the eighteenth. All except Sharise and Ty Deavers. Those two were staying on for the lip-synching scene in a German movie and leaving Germany two days later. So June became Sharise; Sharise became June. The murder of Collier was planned for the night of the eighteenth. Ty Deavers’ job was to keep people at a safe distance from the fake Sharise while June posed as the rock star back in Germany.”

  Frank jumped in. “Meanwhile Sharise, disguised as June, made sure she booked a seat on a flight that none of the other band members were on, which was easy to do as the rest of them lived on the East Coast.”

  “So as long as neither woman was around someone who knew them,” said Katie, eyes wide with understanding, “they were able to trade places.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And with the wig and hat covering half her face, and the outlandish costumes, who was to know it was June bouncing around on the sound stage instead of Sharise? She was lip-synching to songs, anyway, not really singing, so it was perfect.”

  “How far ahead do you think this was planned?” Gurn speared a slice of persimmon before looking at me.

  “A long time, apparently,” I said.

  Frank took over. “When Marty was told Sharise was dead, he broke down and admitted everything. Collier was going to be in Switzerland for some small plastic surgery at the same time Sharise was to be in Germany performing. She and Collier met up a few times in Switzerland, supposedly rekindling their romance.”

  “Much to his delight,” I added. “And due to their mutually high profiles, they kept their meetings very hush-hush. Thanks to Marty, Sharise knew Collier’s plan was to secretly fly back earlier than expected to continue with his sabotage plans of Read-Out and the people he felt betrayed him.”

  “Let me get this straight about him and Read-Out,” said Chef Walt looking from Frank to me. “Mr. Collier’s intention was to make it look like he was helping to get more backers by throwing a big bash when in reality he was selling company secrets and trying to destroy the upcoming IPO?”

  “In a word, yes,” I said. “And it all fit right into Sharise’s plans. She flew back early, too, ostensibly to continue their assignation. And not wanting the paparazzi to get wind of it, she told Collier she would come back in secret, as well.”

  “I guess David believed she finally returned his love. It’s sad,” said Katie. “But just how was Marty involved in it?”

  “It was Marty who drove the tester and chips back from Nevada, per Collier’s instructions,” I said. “And he’s the one who picked Collier up when he arrived from Switzerland five days early and brought him to the Sunnyvale house where Collier hid out. Then Marty met Sharise at the airport a few days ago and drove to her home in Tiburon to make a fresh batch of Devil’s Breath. Then they both went to where Collier was waiting for her.”

  “Marty also was her companion in Redding.” Frank’s voice was somber, having known Jake for as long as the Alvarez family. “She went there disguised as the cowgirl, and together they killed Jake Gold.”

  “I know I probably shouldn’t, but I feel sorry for David. He seems to have made so many bad choices,” said Katie.

  “That can happen when a talented and complicated man who wields a lot of power doesn’t get what he wants,” said Gurn.

  “’Absolute power corrupts absolutely’, as the saying goes,” Frank said.

  We were all silent for a moment then Katie spoke up.

  “I hope Skye never learns about that side of her father.”

  “We’ll do what we can to spare Miss Skye for as long as we can.” Chef Walt’s face wore a grim look, but his eyes were filled with warmth and camaraderie.

  Katie threw him a grateful smile then was reflective. “I knew David was unhappy with something at Read-Out, but I had no idea what. But I’m sure he told Marty the details. He told Marty everything.”

  “And then Marty relayed the information to Sharise,” said Chef Walt, catching on.

  “You could call Marty a double agent,” Gurn said.

  Katie shook her head in disbelief. “Marty told us his mother was sick, and he would need time off now and then. We never thought anything of it.” She turned to me. “But why did he do it? He’s been with us since before Skye was born.”

  “You forget that Marty has known Sharise since she was not much older than Skye,” I said. “They formed a bond early on. I don’t know when they became lovers, but they certainly were.”

  “Marty said he didn’t like the way Collier treated Sharise,” said Frank. “Can’t say as I blame him on that score.”

  “It does sound like David Collier was a twenty-first century stalker with high-tech tools,” s
aid Gurn.

  I nodded. “True enough. Marty wanted him dead so Sharise would be free of him. For her part, once her ex- was disposed of, she would get a million dollars a month for life.”

  “I’m wondering if she was just using Marty,” said Katie.

  “It sounds like it would be within her character,” said Chef Walt.

  ”Sharise was a very smart lady, smarter than people gave her credit for,” Frank said.

  “And she was desperate. Ty Deavers didn’t know it,” I said, “but he was the sacrificial goat, meant to take the blame if things started unraveling.”

  “Which they did,” said Gurn, “Thanks to you.”

  “She didn’t count on Read-out bringing me in to find out who was sabotaging the upcoming IPO. Me snooping around made Sharise very nervous.”

  Gurn smiled at me. “You were Sherlock Holmes to her Professor Moriarty.”

  “Something like that. First she tried to get rid of me by sending me to Fremont on the trail of the chips and tester. She hoped to meet up with me on my own and give me some Devil’s Breath. But I got there sooner than expected. When she saw she missed her opportunity, she sent her motorcycle squad after me.”

  “Just how many people were involved in this?” Katie turned to Chef Walt before adding, “I can’t keep up.”

  “Me, either.” The chef nodded with a small laugh, and both looked at me.

  “Ty Deavers and June Mitchell were part one of this elaborate scheme,” I said. “They were promised a lot of money to help pull the switcheroo off in Germany. I suspect Jerome Hastings and Ronnie Epstein were afterthoughts, maybe to throw me off the track.”

  I shook my head and was silent for a moment. The deaths of those two kids weighed heavily on me.

  “But Marty was the important California cohort; the one who helped Sharise the night Collier was killed. After he was drugged the first time, Marty and Sharise took Collier to the back stairs of Read-Out’s offices. They told him to use his code card to let the three of them into the building; the one place that didn’t have surveillance cameras. Once upstairs, Collier opened his Chinese puzzle desk for them and did anything else they wanted.”