The minutes ticked off. Mary started swinging her leg. Her sling-back shoe made an annoying sound as it slapped against her heel. After twenty minutes, she said, “Told you, didn’t I? How long does it take to copy a file? Bet he steals, too. I can smell a thief a mile away.”
Pete Fisher returned with a harried look on his face. He handed Mary a thin manila folder without speaking. She knew the contents of the file were going to be worthless to them. Carolyn had to admit that the detective looked guilty. For what, she wasn’t entirely certain. Maybe because he was standing in front of a dedicated police officer who would work a case until there was nothing left to work, who had even tracked down her father’s killer. Perhaps he merely sensed that Mary was a woman of integrity, a quality Detective Fisher didn’t appear to possess.
Mary and Carolyn went back and forth about where to have lunch. Mary wanted to go to the drive-through at Carl’s Jr., and Carolyn wanted to stop off at a health-food store that served soup and sandwiches. “You’re going to lecture me about junk food?” the detective said, pointing a finger at her. “You’re the one who guzzles liquid chocolate for lunch. That’s not exactly health food.”
“I don’t do that all the time,” Carolyn protested, tugging on the strap of her seat belt. “I was on a chocolate binge, okay? I’m going through withdrawal now, and I have to eat something other than hamburgers.”
“You’d have a hard time being a cop,” the detective told her, turning into the shopping center where the health-food store was located. “We have to eat whenever and whatever we can get our hands on. By the time we finish eating, it’s going to be close to three o’clock. We’re going to get stuck in traffic on the way back.”
“Then maybe you’ll have to drive the speed limit,” Carolyn said, as Mary parked. She looked up and saw a familiar blue sign. “Do you realize this is a handicapped slot?”
“Oops.” Mary backed up and parked a few rows over. “I did that once in a black-and-white. Doesn’t go over well with the public. I got written up.”
Carolyn told Mary about her evening with Marcus over lunch.
“Now I know why you’re watching what you eat,” the policewoman said, finishing off her egg salad sandwich and splitting their bill. “I still can’t believe this whole scenario you described. Man’s got a good-looking woman on the beach. Moon’s out, waves splashing, and all he does is watch her sleep. Pretty weird, if you ask me. Guy should have been all over you.”
“It was wonderful,” Carolyn told her, a dreamy look in her eyes. “I can’t explain it, Mary. There was something so honest about him, so deep, so unique. Most men are either rushing at you ninety miles per hour or they’re running the other way. He let me remain in my own space, but somehow we connected at this profound level.”
“Quiet, mysterious type, right?”
“I guess,” Carolyn agreed, putting on her sunglasses as they exited the restaurant.
“Here’s what I’ve learned about men like that,” Mary said as they walked to her car. “The silent types are silent for a reason. They’re stupid. They haven’t got anything to say. Women fill in all the blanks and end up married to a knucklehead who looks good and knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
A half hour later, they pulled up in front of a modest house on Grove Street, not far from Balboa Park. As they made their way to the front door, Carolyn said, “The Sheppards could have made up, then taken the house off the market.”
“We’ll know shortly.” The detective indicated a person moving past a window toward the door.
A portly middle-aged man wearing a tank top opened the door. Mary flashed her badge and quickly slipped it back into her purse before the man figured out she was working outside her jurisdiction. “I’m Detective Stevens and this is Officer Sullivan,” she said, peering through the screen. “We’d like to ask you some questions. Do you mind if we come in?”
“Sure,” he said, opening the door wider. “I’m Owen Richards. What’s this about?” After the women stepped inside, he continued, “Have a seat. Do you want something to drink? Some water or a soda? I’d offer you a beer, but I guess you can’t drink while you’re on duty.”
Shaking her head “no” to the offer of a beverage, Mary said, “When did you buy this home?” and took a seat beside Carolyn on a dirty beige sofa. The only other chair in the room was a recliner, and the owner was already sitting in it. The house was fairly neat, but it reeked of perspiration, beer, and, from the kitchen, grease.
“I reckon it’s been about five months now,” Richards told them, taking a swig of his Budweiser. “Got a good deal on it, too. I’m a bachelor, see. I never owned my own home before. Drive a truck for a living. Guess that’s why I never got hitched. Women don’t like it when you’re gone all the time. They always think you’re cheating on them.”
Carolyn asked, “Did you buy the furniture as well?”
“What furniture?” he said, looking puzzled. “I just moved my stuff out of my old apartment. I’m not here that often, so why bust my budget to buy new furniture? Don’t you think it’s time you tell me what this is all about?”
“One of the former owners of this house was reported missing about a year ago,” Mary informed him. “The couple’s name was Sheppard. Did you meet them, maybe speak to one of them on the phone?”
“You gotta be mistaken,” Richards said, belching. “I’ve never heard of anyone named Sheppard. I bought this from a real estate investor named Mark Thomas. Nice guy. Gave me a real good deal, knocked twenty grand off the asking price. He’d sold it to some other people before me. They turned out to be deadbeats, so he kicked them out. I think their name was Wagner. I occasionally get mail addressed to them. Never got mail for anyone named Sheppard, though.”
“Have any of your neighbors lived here a long time?” Carolyn asked, knowing Mary was disappointed. If he’d bought the furniture from the Sheppards, they might still be able to locate some kind of evidence. “You know, a busybody, someone in a neighborhood watch.”
“You got it right the first time,” Richards said, chuckling. “That’s got to be Mrs. Kirkland. Lived here about twenty years, they tell me…always looking out her window. First time I saw her, I thought it was a cat.” He cupped his hand in a circle and held it to his ear. “Do you hear that racket? She plays her TV so loud, I almost reported her for disturbing the peace. Poor old thing is deaf, though.” He shrugged, picking up his beer can and placing it back down when he discovered it was empty. “Nothing I can do but tolerate it. Don’t have the heart to sic the cops on her.”
“Thanks for your time,” Mary said, standing to leave. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything else, please call me.”
“You’re a Ventura cop,” he said. “Shoot, I thought you were local. You said one of those people was missing. Was it the husband or the wife?”
“The wife,” Mary said. “We found a body we believe may be Lisa Sheppard.”
At the door, Richards became animated. “You know what? Now that I think of it, I read that name on some papers. Guess I had a few too many beers this afternoon. I gotta pick up my rig and hit the road in the morning, so I usually indulge the day before. Can’t drink when I’m driving.”
“What kind of paper?” Mary asked, spinning around.
“Well,” he said, scratching his stomach, “I was storing some of my stuff in the attic when I found a cardboard box over in a corner, the kind you store files and things in. Under it was another box that had old clothes in it. I was going to throw them out, but I didn’t want to take the trouble of hauling them down. Most of the papers had the name Elizabeth Beckworth on them, but one of them was a certificate for some kind of computer school. The name on that was Lisa Sheppard. Maybe Lisa was a nickname for Elizabeth, and the boxes belonged to the woman you’ve been asking about. I sure as heck don’t have any use for them. You want, you can have them.”
“You bet,” Mary said, shifting her eyes to Carolyn.
Once Richards pulled the bo
xes down from the attic, the two women carried them to Mary’s unmarked police unit. They were so eager to see what was inside, they immediately started digging through the boxes inside the trunk. “Thank you, Jesus,” Mary exclaimed, a paper fluttering in her hand. “This is an emergency room report from a hospital in St. Louis. The name on it is Elizabeth Beckworth. The next of kin was the girl’s grandmother, Eleanor Beckworth. We even have an address and phone number for her. Beckworth must have been her maiden name. She probably started calling herself Lisa when she got older. She broke her leg ice skating when she was seventeen. It was such a bad fracture, they had to pin it. Dr. Ferguson found a similar injury on our Jane Doe. The pins had fallen out, but there were holes in the bone where they’d been inserted.”
“We’re getting closer, then.”
“No shit,” Mary said, smiling. “You must have brought me luck.”
Wearing rubber gloves, Carolyn had been sorting through the various clothing in the box labeled Goodwill in magic marker. “This is a forensic goldmine,” she said, as excited as the detective. “There’s men’s clothes, women’s clothes, even old underwear. Goodwill doesn’t take underwear, do they?”
“This was probably the stuff she was going to toss.” Mary asked Carolyn to stand back so she could close the trunk. As soon as both women were inside the car, the detective dialed Eleanor Beckworth’s phone number. “Damn,” she said, ending the call, “the number has been disconnected. We’ll call the St. Louis PD and have them send a unit to her house. Because of all the junk calls, people change their number all the time.”
“Are you going to have the police tell the grandmother her daughter is dead?” Carolyn asked, removing the rubber gloves and placing them in her pocket. “Let’s think this through before we jump to any conclusions. Shouldn’t we wait until Charley Young or Dr. Ferguson confirms it’s the same injury? There weren’t any X-rays in those files, were there?”
“No,” Mary said, dropping her hand holding the phone, “but we should be able to get them from the hospital. Anyway, you’re right. I’ll take you home and start fresh tomorrow morning. I’m fairly certain we’ve identified our victim. Pretty good for a day’s work. Now all we have to do is find out who killed her.”
“We have Holden’s DNA on file,” Carolyn reminded her. “Those clothes looked pretty old, though, and there’s no telling how many people have handled them.” She watched Mary insert her key in the ignition. “Aren’t you going to talk to Mrs. Kirkland? She might have seen the killer.”
“You’re pretty good,” the detective said, smiling. “Hank thinks I move too fast. Guess he’s right.”
A few minutes later Mary rang Mrs. Kirkland’s doorbell. “Good Lord, do you hear that? She must have some kind of amplifier hooked up to her doorbell. No wonder the guy next door is complaining.”
A petite gray-haired woman opened the door. She couldn’t have been over five feet tall, and her feet were the size of a ten-year-old’s. She fiddled with her ear, adjusting her hearing aid. When Mary held her badge up, the woman invited them in. Her home was tastefully furnished, but crammed with knickknacks, making Carolyn feel claustrophobic. “What can you tell me about the Sheppards, the couple that used to live next door?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Kirkland said, perching herself in a faded blue chair. “I didn’t know them personally, of course. They were young people. Young people don’t have any use for a person my age.”
“Can you describe them?” Carolyn asked, while Mary held her pen over her notepad.
“I’m sorry—you’ll have to speak louder.”
Mary shouted, “What did the husband look like?”
The woman rubbed her hands on the arms of the chair as she searched her memory. “The man was nice-looking. He was tall, and he always wore a black cowboy hat and sunglasses. I believe he had a mustache. The girl was pretty. She had blond hair. I don’t think she had a job because she didn’t go out that often.”
“It would really help if you could provide us with more specifics,” Mary told her. “Was he six feet tall? Was he over six feet? What about his build? Was he heavy, thin, or medium? Did he have any noticeable scars or tattoos?”
“So many questions,” the woman said, her brow furrowing. “I can’t tell you exactly how tall he was. Everyone looks tall to me. He wore long-sleeved shirts most of the time. I didn’t see any scars or tattoos.” She took a breath. “Is that all, officers?”
“No,” Mary said, her voice booming out over the room. “Can you tell us what kind of car he drove?”
“The husband drove a black pickup truck. I’m not sure they had another car, unless they kept it in the garage.” The elderly woman smiled demurely, pulling her skirt down over her knees. “I don’t pry into other people’s business, officers. That wouldn’t be polite, now would it?”
“Did they get along?” Mary drilled her. “Did they fight? Do you know why they moved away? Lisa Sheppard was reported missing by her husband thirteen months ago. No one has seen her since.”
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Kirkland exclaimed. “This is really serious, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Mary shouted, her voice already getting hoarse.
“I have some minor hearing problems,” Mrs. Kirkland answered. “I might not have been able to hear them if they were fighting.” She looked down, then slowly raised her head. “The last time I saw them the husband was putting some things in the back of his truck. I don’t remember seeing the wife that day.”
“Do you know what day that was?”
“Gosh, no,” she said, sliding off the chair to her feet. “I’m sorry I can’t help you more. My shows are on now.”
Mary remained seated, refusing to be brushed off for a soap opera. “You wouldn’t know the license number of the pickup, would you?”
Mrs. Kirkland shook her head, then walked over and turned on the TV as if they weren’t there.
Letting themselves out, they headed back to Ventura. Carolyn asked Mary, “Can’t you get DMV records on the husband?”
“I’ve already tried. There are hundreds of vehicles registered under the name of Matthew Sheppard in California. We’ll try to narrow it down now that we know he drives a pickup. I couldn’t locate a driver’s license with the date of birth that Sheppard listed in the missing persons report. I even checked Missouri. I’m going to try to track him through social security. If we don’t come up with something there, we’ve got ourselves a phantom. That means Sheppard is probably our murderer.”
“But how did he get married?” Carolyn asked. The case had taken another perplexing turn. “Most states require that you have two pieces of identification, your birth certificate, passport, or driver’s license.”
“Maybe they weren’t married,” Mary said, entering the onramp to the freeway. “Some people don’t care about the legalities. At least, we’ve got Lisa’s grandmother. She should be able to give us some answers.”
CHAPTER 17
Tuesday, September 19—5:15 P.M.
Dean picked up his cell phone and dialed his home number. “Sweetheart,” he said when Kathleen answered, “I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I ruined your birthday. Now that I’ve had time to think, I’d love to have you with me when I travel.” He could hear a long sigh on the other end of the line. He hoped she couldn’t tell by the tone of his voice that he was lying.
“Oh, Dean,” she gushed. “I’m so happy. I’m sorry for the things I said, too. Andrea must have mistaken you for someone else. She’s jealous because she doesn’t make anywhere near the money I do. Elaine told me the reason she was in Ventura is that she and her husband were shopping for a less expensive place to live, some area with large homes. How could anything in that area be decent?”
Dean gritted his teeth, barely able to unclench his jaw long enough to speak. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” At least she was receptive to his apology. She believed what he had told her because she wanted to believe. Simple human nature. “We have that
bottle of cognac, don’t we? Will you join me in a drink to celebrate?”
“Yeah, we have it, Dean,” she said, then hesitated. “But I’m going to stay off the sauce. I want to start my diet tomorrow and go back to the gym. Alcohol has lots of calories.”
Kathleen had just ruled out his chance of drugging her with a glass of booze. Now he would have to resort to more violent means to render her unconscious. With a man in his trunk in a drunken stupor, he couldn’t waste any time when he got home. Arnie could wake up at any moment and blow the whole thing. If something happened, though, Dean knew he could fabricate some kind of story. He was a master at working his way out of tight spots.
“Hello, are you still there?” Kathleen said.
“Yes, I’m here,” Dean told her, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “The cell connection is crap around here.”
His mind was drifting. She sounded so happy. He looked in his rearview mirror and expected to see Arnie hanging halfway out of the trunk. “I’ll see you soon, honey. We’re breaking up.”
“I love…” Kathleen said, no longer audible.
He clicked off the phone. The grim reality of what he was planning began to creep into his consciousness. It would be much harder if Kathleen hadn’t turned into such a bitch and demanded to travel with him. Now she had learned things she wasn’t supposed to know.
Kathleen had begun to drain him rather than sustain him. He was sick of calling her every day and micromanaging her foolish life. How could she criticize anything he did? The stupid woman had no idea what he was capable of doing. Besides, she actually believed selling real estate was important. How dare she suggest that he work for her?
Kathleen was the type of woman that he used to treat when he worked as a psychiatrist. They came to him to complain about the failure of their personal relationships, but their real problem was that they were power-hungry, carnivorous men haters. They played along until they had a man by the balls, and then they started nagging and ordering him around.
Sullivan’s Evidence Page 16
