by Matt Coyle
“Okay.” Someone willing to cooperate. There had to be a but in there somewhere. Or maybe Jack Anton was non compos mentis and wanted someone other than his wife to babble at. I’d take my chances. “Thanks.”
“I’ll have the Phelps murder file ready when you get here.”
My gut flipped over.
“How did you know I was investigating the Phelps murder?” I asked.
“You said a twenty-eight-year-old murder and you’re Charlie Cahill’s son. It has to be Phelps.”
“Why?” There was nothing wrong with this guy’s mentis.
“It was the only murder I reported on that year that went unsolved.”
“What does my father have to do with it?”
“Come by tomorrow and I’ll show you the file.” He hung up.
Jack Anton just might have the answer to my father’s riddle. If he did, why hadn’t he reported it twenty-eight years ago? I was too young back then to read the Metro section of the morning paper, but my mother did. And so did the parents of my friends and kids I went to school with. The story would have trickled down to me, instead of just rumors of some never-defined mob connection.
Whatever it was, I’d find out tomorrow.
* * *
My cell phone rang while I wrote out a check to Moira for her help in the Parker affair. Maybe the wrong word. Or maybe the right one. I checked the cell phone screen. Unknown.
I hoped it was a new client. I’d just worked the last week for free, paying Moira but not myself, out of a sense of honor. At least that’s what I told myself when my conscience told me it was out of pride. Pride goeth before and after the fall.
“Hello?”
“Rick, so wonderful to hear your voice again.” The warm-butter-over-pancakes voice that always had a dagger hidden underneath. “I have a job for you. It’s right down your mean-streeted alley. In fact, you’re already familiar with the subject to whom it pertains.”
Peter Stone.
“Not interested, Stone.” Not if I was starving.
“I need you to track down a missing person. The retainer will be well worth your while. You might even be able to finally get yourself a real office instead of a pretend one in my restaurant.”
“Turk’s restaurant.”
“Tomayto, tomahto.”
“Why don’t you contact the police? I’m sure if you look in your pocket, you’ll find a few cops in there.”
“I do miss our little chats, Rick. It’s been too long.” He let go a breath. “But, unfortunately, I don’t have time for the everyday hero banter. The subject’s name is Sophia Domingo. You followed her all over San Diego a couple days ago.”
Sophia missing? Missing to Stone may have been hiding out from him to Sophia. And probably countless others. But how did Stone know I’d been following her? Had she spotted me or had Stone already had a tail on her who did? Either way I’d blown my cover. Had it altered her behavior or had she just gone about her business and laughed at me in her rearview mirror?
“I’m not familiar with the name.”
“Well, a 2016 black Honda Accord with the license plate 3UZB657 followed Miss Domingo from Carlsbad to the San Diego County Administration Center downtown two days ago. And one of those friends I keep in my pocket told me that car is registered to you. Coincidence?”
“How long has she been missing and who is she to you?”
“Are you taking the case, Rick? Shall I wire funds into your checking account?” The pleased voice of a man used to bending people to his will.
I didn’t know what game Stone was playing, but I never did. In my earlier dealings with him, I’d stared all day at a flat checkerboard while he’d moved pieces around in a three-dimensional game of chess that I couldn’t even see.
Until the end.
Stupidity had nearly gotten me killed. Persistence had saved my life.
“I’m trying to get some background so I can make a decision. How long has she been missing?” One thing I was sure of, if Sophia really was missing, Stone wanted to find her before the police did. The why to that was a frightening thing. Something I’d never be a part of.
“Less than twenty-four hours.”
“Have you checked with your old friends in Las Vegas? She might be there.” Maybe Jeffrey Parker had company on his trip to Sin City.
“That’s the one place where I’m sure she isn’t.”
“Maybe you should check your house, because she went there two days ago at around five thirty.”
“See, I knew I’d come to the right man. Job well done. You certainly earned your wages that day.” The pleased tone in his voice never portended well for me. Or anyone else. “I very well may have been the last person to see Sophia that day. However, when I talked to her on the phone last night, she informed me she was just about to have a meeting with someone.”
He wanted me to ask who the meeting was with. He was certain I would. Just as he was certain about the reactions of every person he manipulated. I waited. Even pulled the phone away from my face and hovered my thumb over the end call button.
Finally.
“Who was she meeting?” I danced on the end of his string.
“A woman named Kim Parker.”
A cold finger itched across the back of my neck. Kim? Meeting with Sophia? No. Stone had found my weakness and was probing just for fun. Life was a video game and he held the controller. He had to be lying. I’d met Kim at her office the afternoon Stone said Sophia called him.
Kim had just found out that her husband had given Sophia 10 percent of Parker Real Estate. Shit.
I needed to talk to Kim. I hadn’t spoken to her since the meeting in her office.
But first, I had to try to figure out Stone’s angle. And how sharp it was.
“Why haven’t you called the police if Sophia is that important to you?”
“Maybe I have and you’re just for insurance. A backup. Kind of like your relationship with Kim Parker. Waiting on the sidelines to get into the game if the starter, her first pick, messes up.”
I’d forgotten how many eyes and ears Stone had out in the world. Assets to extract information from when he needed leverage and a crowbar was just too blunt. Pawns in that three-dimensional chess game. But he was wrong about Kim and me. I’d been her first choice. She’d gone with number two only when she finally figured out that I’d never be able to give her all that she gave me. But right or wrong, Stone’s jab was more defensive than a frontal assault. Trying to keep me away from his own weakness.
“I don’t think so, Stone. You can’t go to the police. They’re for your fake life. The one where you’re an upright citizen. A philanthropist donating wings to libraries. You know, the façade. The barrier that keeps people from seeing the real you behind it. Where briefcases change hands in hotel rooms and a fixer like Sophia Domingo gets you a cut of the richest real estate deal in the history of San Diego.”
“You’re clever, Rick. Much more so than an ordinary second-stringer.” A chuckle. His only form of a laugh. It says he’s in control and you exist for his amusement. “Maybe there’s still time for dear Kim to discern that and put you in the game.”
“Why me, Stone? I seem like an odd choice for you to hire, being a second-stringer and all. And there’s also the fact that I can’t stand you and know who you really are.”
“Because you’re honest, Rick. Maybe not with the police, but with people who matter. I know Kim Parker matters to you and you know that if she’s mixed up in something illegal that I have the money and the connections to help extricate her from the situation.”
“What situation are you talking about?” Still dancing on the end of his string. But, he was right, Kim mattered to me. I’d do anything to keep her safe. Even play Stone’s game.
“Hopefully not one that has windows with bars on them in her future. Find Miss Domingo, and everything will turn out okay.”
“Except for Sophia. What does she have that you want and are afraid she’ll give to some
one else?”
“I’ll wire the fifteen thousand dollars into your checking account. That should cover the first week. Shouldn’t it?”
Fifteen grand. The exact amount my father had received for killing someone or for blackmailing someone else who did. Was Stone paying me for the former? I find Sophia so one of his hitters can murder her. And pin the blame on me? Only if I let him. If I found Sophia, I’d warn her about Stone and she could decide what to do. If Stone’s men beat me to her, I’d go to the police and tell them everything I knew. First, I had to make sure Kim hadn’t done something stupid or gotten herself into a situation that only a man like Stone could get her out of.
“Cash. I’ll come by your house tomorrow at nine a.m. I don’t want anything on paper that says we’re somehow connected.” I wouldn’t touch my father’s murder or blackmail money, but I’d take Stone’s dirty money every day of the week. I just wouldn’t get dirty for it.
“The world-weary PI, and yet, sometimes so naïve. You didn’t really think the wired money would come from my account, did you? I want a paper trail between us even less than you do. Cash is fine. Make it eight tomorrow morning.” He hung up.
Time change and last word to show he was still in control. Stone hadn’t changed in four years.
That’s what I was afraid of.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I CALLED KIM’S cell phone. Voicemail. Her office phone. Voicemail. Home. Voicemail.
I left my office, went into my bedroom next door, and grabbed my Ruger SP 101 .357 Magnum from the nightstand. Peter Stone was deeply involved. I, and everyone I cared about, needed protection now. I found a pancake holster in my sock drawer and slipped it onto my belt. A wooden box caught my eye as I started to close the drawer.
It held the one thing of my father’s that I’d kept all these years. His LJPD badge. Tarnished by time and by his reputation. I let the box lay and closed the drawer.
I slid the Ruger into the holster and grabbed a windbreaker from my closet for concealment.
Midnight walked into the room, sat next to the bed, and stared at me. He tried to engage me in a game of blink. The stare was also an accusation that I couldn’t deny. I hadn’t taken him down to the Fiesta Island Dog Park in over a week. I hadn’t even taken him for a long walk for days. He’d been relegated to roaming the backyard and lifting his leg to all too familiar bushes.
I owed him. He’d get his time to unleash his ancestral imperative and swim in the bay and run with other pack dogs soon. But not until I knew that Kim was safe. I called Moira on my way downstairs to my car.
“What do you need my help on now, Cahill?”
“Peter Stone claims Sophia Domingo is missing.”
“Why should we care?”
“It’s complicated.” I went into the garage and got into my car.
“When isn’t it with you?”
“I need you to contact one of your sources on LJPD and SDPD and find out if anyone’s reported Sophia missing.” I pushed the garage door remote. “There’s a lot of money in it.”
“Stone’s money?”
“Yeah. Why do you care?” I pulled out onto the street.
“I don’t. I thought you did.”
“Not anymore. Check the Pacific Terrace Hotel first.”
“Roger. What about the other thing?” she asked.
“There is no other thing.”
“Liar!” She spat the word through the phone. “If there wasn’t, you would have asked, ‘What other thing?’”
She wouldn’t let go of her assumption that I was investigating something on my own. She was right. Her smarts and Pitbull-with-a-bone attitude were what made her such a good investigator. But the closer I got to finding the truth about my father, the further away I was from telling anyone about it.
“Call me when you learn something.” I hung up.
I tried all of Kim’s phone numbers again as I drove toward La Jolla. All went to voicemail. I Googled the main number for Parker Real Estate and called it. Open on Saturday. The receptionist told me Kim was out of the office. I asked if she was showing a house and if I could have the address. The receptionist wouldn’t budge.
Kim and Jeffrey Parker lived above La Jolla Shores. I’d never been to their house. I’d never been invited. But I knew the address. I shouldn’t. I should have forgotten all about Kim when I found out she’d gotten married. But a few months ago, with too much idle time, and too many people-finder capabilities at my fingertips, I’d found her address.
The house was on Calle Del Oro. High enough up the winding hill to have a view of the ocean a half mile away, as a seagull flies. Modern ranch house design. Large, but not massive. Stylish, but not ostentatious or garish. Classy, unlike some of the recent teardown and rebuilds in La Jolla. It fit Kim, even though Parker had owned the house before she moved in. I’d give him credit for his taste in architecture and women. At least the woman he married.
I sat parked at the curb, surveying the house in the afternoon sun. No cars in the driveway, but the home had a three-car garage. The house’s windows gave no hint of movement.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Moira.
“Nothing about Sophia missing from either PD. She checked out of the hotel last night. I’m heading over to Point Loma now.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s this all about?”
I told her what Stone had told me, complete with his claim that Sophia had said she was meeting Kim last night.
“What’s Stone after?” Moira asked.
“I don’t know, but I doubt he has good intentions.”
“Then why are you helping him?”
“I need to know how Kim’s involved and, right now, Stone’s an enemy I need to keep close.”
“Rick, Peter Stone is not the kind of man you play games with. You of all people should know that.”
I couldn’t remember Moira ever calling me Rick before.
“I’m not playing a game. I know Stone. Better than I’d like to. He contacted me because he can’t go to the police, even though he’s got cops on his payroll. His weakness is daylight exposing who he really is to the public. I’ll go to the police if I feel I have to.”
“Be careful.” Softer than I’d ever heard her voice. “What else do you need me to do?”
“Go down to the hotel and see if she or Sophia’s car’s there.”
“Roger.”
I got out of my car and walked up to the front door of the Parker house and rang the bell. No response from inside. I knocked loudly on the door and waited. Ten seconds later the door opened. Jeffrey Parker stared out at me. He wasn’t smiling. Neither was I. I hadn’t expected him to be back from Las Vegas yet. Although, flights to and from Vegas ran all day and were only an hour and a half tarmac to tarmac. He could have left in the morning or as late as two hours ago.
“What are you doing here?” Parker wore jeans, polo shirt. Loafers. No socks. Casual day at home, but for the wisp of hair gel spiking his bangs. He looked ready for a GQ photo shoot except for a nick on his jawline he must have gotten shaving. Nobody’s perfect.
“Is Kim here?”
“Why is that a concern of yours?” He bit the words off hard, one at a time.
Parker didn’t try to hide it. He hated me. A lot of people in La Jolla did. They hated me because of some rumor, true or false, that they’d heard about my father. Or because they thought I’d killed my wife in Santa Barbara twelve years ago and gotten away with it. But Parker’s reasons were different from the rest. He hated me out of jealousy. A man with Hollywood good looks, a four-million-dollar home, and a wife who’d once been my girlfriend whom I still loved. But he knew she chose him only after I wouldn’t let her choose me.
Or he could have just hated me for me.
“I need to talk to her. Is she here?”
“That’s none of your damn business.” He puffed out his chest and balled his hands into fists, popping veins along his well-muscled forearms. “Get the hell out of here.
”
If he wanted to go, I could take him. Unless he was a black belt in some martial art I’d never heard of. Even then, he’d have to knock me out to stop me. And after everything he’d done behind Kim’s back, I had extra incentive. But LJPD hated me more than everyone else in La Jolla. I had a gun on my hip that, even though I had a license to carry, could make me a guest in a room without a view in the Brick House. But my read on Parker was that his physique was for show, not for go.
“Asshole, I want to make sure your wife is okay.” I invaded his space. “Tell me if she’s here or I’ll check myself.”
“Why wouldn’t she be okay?” His face squinted into a sneer. “You think I’d hurt her?”
Parker whipped his right arm back. I shot a fist into his solar plexus. Hot tuna breath exploded into my face and Parker crumpled down onto the floor of his foyer. I stepped over him and entered the house.
“Kim?” I looked in the kitchen, the dining room, the family room, and started down the long hall for the bedrooms. First one empty. “Kim?”
“I’m calling the police!” Parker’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Go ahead!” I shouted. “We can all sit down and have a talk.”
A bluff, but it was all I had. I didn’t know if Parker had broken any laws in his dealings with Sophia. Even if he had, I was still sworn to secrecy to Kim. A contract with a client was an oath to keep their secrets even after the case was closed, unless they broke the law. With Kim, it was more than that.
If LJPD showed up, I was going to jail.
Parker didn’t respond, but I didn’t hear his voice on the phone talking to the police. Probably mulling his options. They must not have been very good. What the hell were he and Sophia up to?
I checked the rest of the bedrooms. All six of them and the seven bathrooms. Empty.
When I returned to the foyer, Parker was hunched over, hands on thighs, like he’d just finished a triathlon. He sucked in short breaths.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” He finally straightened up to his full height, three inches taller than me. But the fight was out of him. “I called her an hour ago, and she hasn’t called me back.”
