by Matt Coyle
“Sure, Rick.” A smile, but no offer to call him by whatever his first name was. “So, tell me about how you first came in contact with Sophia Domingo.”
“I never really came into contact with Ms. Domingo. Like I told you the other day, she interacted with a target of my surveillance. I never spoke with her or ever got closer than fifty feet from her.”
“Did you ever follow her and make her the target of your surveillance?” Sheets made the question sound like a friendly aside.
“Yes.”
“Why was that?”
“Now we’re getting into client confidentiality.”
“As you know, I’ve already spoken with Kim Parker, your client.” Sheets smiled and leaned in. “I know she hired you to follow her husband because she was afraid he might be cheating on her. Why did you begin following Sophia?”
“Jeffrey Parker met her at The Pacific Terrace Hotel, so I figured I’d follow her and see what I could find out about her.”
“And what did you find?”
“That she was somehow affiliated with real estate in La Jolla and San Diego. I thought I already told you all this the other day.”
“Just trying to be thorough.” A smile. Half grad student, half homicide detective. “You said Sophia was affiliated with real estate in La Jolla. Did she have a business relationship with Jeffrey Parker?”
“You’d have to ask him.” My chair suddenly felt uncomfortable. Kim wanted to keep Sophia and Parker’s new partnership quiet. Kim wasn’t a client anymore, but she was still a friend.
“I’m asking you as a professional PI. What’s your take?”
“My take is I’m not in the real estate business and don’t know very much about it.” Flattery works on the vain. I’m many things, but not vain.
“Okay, let’s talk about something you know a lot about.” Full cop smile. I knew what was coming. “Cheating spouses. That seems to be your specialty. Do you think Jeffrey Parker was having an affair with Sophia Domingo?”
“I think they probably had sex the day I followed him to The Pacific Terrace Hotel.” I’d cover for Kim on Sophia’s professional relationship with Jeffrey. Not her sexual one. Kim had made her choice. This wasn’t personal. Sheets was right. This was my specialty. “And my guess would be that they’d done it before.”
“How did Kim Parker react to this information?”
“I told her what I saw, which was Parker and Sophia drinking wine on the balcony of the hotel room. I didn’t offer an opinion on what it meant.” Not a lie. I gave an opinion, but only after Kim prodded me.
“Yes, and how did she react?”
“Calmly.”
“Really, Mr. Cahill?” Sheets put his hands on the table and an edge on his voice. “You give Mrs. Parker proof that her husband is cheating on her and she’s calm?”
“I didn’t give her proof of anything. I told her what I saw.”
“I understand.” Sheets leaned back in his chair. “You don’t want to say anything that could put her in a bad light. I know you and Mrs. Parker had a relationship in the past.”
“I’m just giving you the facts, Detective Sheets.” In a light I thought appropriate.
“Okay, let’s go back to the morning you found Sophia Domingo’s body.” He leaned forward and the front legs of his chair hit the floor with a thud. “You and your ex-girlfriend decided to meet for breakfast in La Jolla on Sunday morning, the very same morning that Sophia Domingo, the woman who’d been having an affair with Kim’s husband and who she’d hired you to follow, is lying dead in the trunk of her car on top of Kim and Jeffrey’s place of work. Is that about right?”
“Friends having breakfast together doesn’t seem very unusual, Detective. I can’t speak to the rest of your scenario.”
“Friends and business associates. You were under her employ, remember?”
“Not at that point. We’d already concluded our business.”
“Oh, so this must have been a debriefing meeting where she paid you for a job well done.” His eyebrows went up like he’d scored a point.
“No. Friends hoping to have a nice breakfast.”
“How did Jeffrey Parker feel about your and his wife’s friendship?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”
“Does any of the rest of what you call a scenario seem a bit coincidental to you, Mr. Cahill?” He rolled his eyes. “The odds of you stumbling upon the body of a person you were investigating on your way to an innocent breakfast with the woman who hired you are astronomical. Now, if you somehow already knew the body was there, then everything would make more sense.”
“What makes sense is that someone left Sophia’s body on the roof of Parker Real Estate for a reason.” The sweat under my arms was matched by some along my hairline. “And I doubt if Kim Parker had had something to do with Sophia Domingo’s death, she’d plant the body on top of her own building.”
“And neither would you, right?”
“Is there a more direct question you’d like to ask, Detective Sheets? ’Cause the gotcha game is played out.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He grinned and slapped the table. “Would you mind if I take a sample of your DNA?”
Not the question I’d expected.
“Why do you want my DNA? I told you I tried the door handle to the staircase on the roof, but I didn’t touch anything else.”
“We just want to eliminate you as a suspect. Then you and I won’t have to have too many more of these talks.”
“Sure. I’ll give you a sample.” My heart kicked over. I thought back to Sunday morning and the Corvette and Sophia’s body in the trunk. Could I have accidentally touched something aside from the door to the staircase and not know it? Did I get close enough to her body when I identified it to have a tiny piece of me slough onto what was once her? No. The DNA would absolve me and the police could concentrate on finding the real killer.
Detective Sheets opened the portfolio and pulled out a large envelope and set it on the desk. He then pulled some nitrile gloves from his pocket and put them on.
“Have you eaten in the last hour, Rick?” Rick. We were friends now. I guess it’s better to be friends when you ask someone to open their mouth so you can stick something into it.
“No.”
“Could you take a sip of water and slosh it around in your mouth for a few seconds?”
I did as asked and Sheets opened the envelope and took out a printed form, a long thin packet, and a box about the size of a toothbrush. He ripped open the packet and pulled out two long cotton swabs with cotton on just one end.
“Please open your mouth. I’m going to rub two swabs on the inside of each cheek for about thirty seconds. It will seem like a long time while I’m doing it, but please be patient.”
I opened my mouth, and he pushed the swabs at me like the airplane going into the hangar. Without the turns and sound effects. He rubbed the swabs inside my mouth long enough for us to go steady. He slid the swabs into the little toothbrush box and closed it. He put the box down on the table, then slid the form across to me. I read the form. A search warrant for my DNA.
“Please sign the search warrant and you’ll be on your way.”
I signed the form and slid it back to Sheets.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Rick. We’ll contact you if we need anything else.” He stood like it was time to go.
I stayed seated.
“Why the DNA, Detective? What kind of evidence was found on the body?”
Sophia’s murder was LJPD’s case, not mine. I’d spied on her for a couple days while she probably cheated on her lover by having sex with a married man, had a more dangerous business coupling with Peter Stone, and probably helped cap a sleazy land deal by paying off someone on the Coastal Commission. I’d surveilled worse people. But they hadn’t ended up naked and slashed to bits in the trunk of their cars. She was someone’s daughter. There was someone somewhere who would grieve her loss. I needed to know if my spying on her had in
any way abetted her destruction.
“Now you’re the one crossing into confidentiality, Mr. Cahill.” Sheets smiled. “I’ll contact you if I need anything else.”
“I think I’ll wait until you have my DNA samples all sealed up, if it’s okay with you.”
“Are you insinuating I’d falsify evidence?” Sheets’ face blew pink.
“Just following my own routine procedures, Detective. No offense.” I didn’t have anything against Sheets, yet, but LJPD had something against me and my father. I was willing to make one more enemy to be sure my DNA didn’t get mistaken for someone else’s. Or vice versa.
“I guess everything I’ve heard about you is true, Cahill.” The color faded from his cheeks. He must have defaulted to the LJPD institutional knowledge about who I was. Facts in the place of emotions.
“That I’m a cautious man?”
“No. That you’re always working an angle, can’t be trusted, and only care about yourself.” He locked eyes onto mine that looked more cop than at any time since I met him two days ago. “Just like your father.”
“You don’t know anything about my father, Sheets.” I stood up by reflex. A residual from the molecule of hope I’d carried inside me all my life and knew now to be folly. Still, my father, my blood. I’d defend them until the end of my life even though I knew both were tainted. I pointed at the cotton swabs. “Are you ever going to put the swabs into the envelope so I can get out of here?”
Sheets stared at me and I stared back. I was ready to piss all over the interrogation room if I had to. More DNA to test. Sheets finally picked up the box and sealed it in the envelope.
I left the room without another word and hustled down the stairs and out of the Brick House before my sweat had a chance to dry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I’D NEVER BEEN to Moira’s house before. She’d never invited me. Even though we were now friends, this wasn’t a social visit. She owned a California Craftsman bungalow on Fay Avenue in La Jolla, a couple blocks down from the high school. The La Jolla address surprised me. She was much better at this private investigative stuff than I was.
Moira must have read my mind when she opened the front door and greeted me on the wooden porch.
“The home my late husband grew up in.” She waved me inside. “Don’t get any ideas that you can latch onto a sugar mama. I’m house wealthy and everything else just getting by.”
Moira wore a white tailored pantsuit with a plunging neckline revealing more cleavage than she’d ever shown before. At least to me. She usually wore jeans and floppy sweaters or sweat tops. She wore makeup that made her large eyes and lips pop. I’d always found her attractive in an unconventional way. Tonight, she was exotic. Stunning. Staged for our guests.
“You’re too old for me anyway.” I winked at her and set down the garment bag I brought with me on her sofa and unzipped it.
“Thus, I have the wisdom to know that you’d never be able to satisfy me.” She clucked once like she was calling a horse. “Where did you park?”
“Down by the high school, off the main drag.” I pulled out a windbreaker and hung it on a clothes hook by the front door and dropped a pair of my tennis shoes on the floor.
“Good. They should be here in forty-five minutes.” She pointed down the hall. “Go hang the rest of that stuff in the closet in the bedroom and use the top left drawer of the bureau for the socks and underwear. Make it look like a man lives here or as close as you can come to one.”
I staged the bedroom and then went back into the living room.
“Which one did you talk to, Armstrong or Ketchings?”
“Neither. These guys are all about secrecy. The number you call is only a voice mailbox. You request their services and they text you back on a line which won’t allow you to return the text.”
“They’ll talk to us tonight. Even if they need convincing.” I opened my jacket to show her the shoulder holster with the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.
“Yep.” Moira stood up, turned, and flipped up the back of her jacket revealing her own holster housing a Ruger snub nose .38. She had just enough of a teapot behind to allow the jacket to lay flat without revealing a bulge. A genetic endowment that served as a target whenever Moira turned her back on men.
“You sure you’re up for this?” I closed my coat. “You can let them in and then leave while I do what I need to.”
“You need backup, Cahill. Two of them, one of you. Even you know that math doesn’t add up.”
“Yeah, but we may have to pull these guns to intimidate them, and things could go sideways. We’d be looking at kidnapping with a deadly weapon.”
“They’d never press charges. They don’t want the police to know they even exist.” She shook her head. “Besides, they broke into your house and assaulted you. I’m in, Cahill. For whatever.”
Seven o’clock came and went. Seven thirty. Still not here. Moira called Discreet Investigations’ phone number at seven thirty-five and left a message on their voicemail. No new text. We contemplated scrapping the ruse and planned to drop by their office unannounced tomorrow. Finally, a knock on the door five minutes later. Moira checked the peephole and then nodded at me. I tiptoed down the hall and slipped into the first door on the left. The bathroom. I closed the door and put my ear up against it.
I heard Moira’s muffled voice, but couldn’t make out all of her words. Then a man’s. Same thing. The voices got louder and a little clearer.
Moira’s voice, “… late.”
Male voice, “… ran long.”
Moira, “… two-man team.”
Male voice, “… a one-man job.”
Moira, louder. Closer. “Our bedroom is down the hall. I guess that would be the best place to start.” Reluctant. Meryl Streep in character. “I pray that I’m wrong and this is all just my imagination.”
Male. “Hopefully, it is and the recorded record will give you the peace of mind you’re hoping for.”
Recorded record. That’s what they called spying on someone. Made it sound like they were historians instead of spies and breaking-and-entering artists. The voice sounded like the white guy who’d cracked me on the head with the metal clipboard. I was going to enjoy our conversation.
“Where’s the best place to put a camera …” Moira’s voice trailed off, probably as she went down the hall into her bedroom.
I waited a couple seconds, then slowly opened the bathroom door and eased out into the hall. Moira stood in the doorway of her bedroom with her back to me.
“I’ll put one in this light fixture that will get a fish-eye view of the whole bedroom.” The man’s voice from inside the bedroom.
I pulled the Smith & Wesson from its holster and held it against my leg as I walked down the hall. I touched Moira on the back and she walked into the room toward the opposite wall. When she settled there I stepped into the room, keeping the gun at my side. The white guy from the Spectrum truck stood in the opposite corner, his nose swollen from my fist. A briefcase sat open on the bed facing him.
“Which one are you, Armstrong or Ketchings?” I gave my wrist a quick twist so that he noticed the gun.
The man whipped wide eyes at me, then down at the briefcase.
“Don’t move!” Moira had her gun out and pointed at his chest. “Hands up and step back from the briefcase.”
The man froze with his eyes still on the briefcase.
“Step back.” I aimed at center mass with a two-handed grip. He put his hands up and took a step backward. I kept my gun trained on him and advanced.
The man’s eyes fell back to normal and a tiny smile creased his lips.
“Turn around. Hands against the wall. Spread them,” I said, then turned to Moira. “You got him?”
She had her gun still trained on him in a two-handed grip, left foot forward in a Weaver combat stance. She nodded without taking her eyes off the man. She’d never been a cop like I had, but studied tactics and spent a lot of time at a shooting range.
The man slowly turned and pressed his hands against the bedroom wall. I pulled the briefcase toward me and spun it around. It held well-organized surveillance equipment and one item that didn’t belong. A 9mm Beretta pistol in a custom holster fashioned to the inside lid of the briefcase. I picked it up, made sure the safety was on, then stuck it in my waistline behind my back. I closed the briefcase and pushed it to the far end of the bed.
I stuck my gun between the man’s shoulder blades to remind him there were two guns against him, then quickly holstered it and patted him down. No other weapon. I pulled out a set of keys, a medium-size Swiss Army knife, a wallet, and a cell phone from his pants’ pockets. I tossed the keys, the knife, and the phone onto the bed. I opened the wallet to the clear plastic sheaf that held his driver’s license.
Edward Haines Armstrong.
I threw the wallet onto the bed with his other stuff and put my gun on him again.
“Hands on top of your head and turn around, Edward. Or do you prefer Eddie?”
Armstrong turned around and showed me a larger smirk than when I’d made him face the wall. He didn’t say anything. Just the smile.
“What’s so funny, Eddie? Breaking and entering and assault? Keep smiling. They like pretty boys up at Chino.”
“I’m the one being held at gunpoint by two people and had my licensed firearm stolen.”
“Why don’t we call LJPD and we can get this all straightened out.” I had no intention of calling the police. At least not the ones who worked out of La Jolla. Armstrong and his partner’s crimes against me had taken place at my house in San Diego PD’s jurisdiction. But the police were my bargaining chip. “Or you can tell me who hired you to bug my house. You do that and we can call it even. No harm done.”
“I’ll take my chances.” The smirk.
“Was it Jules Windsor or someone else?” I watched his eyes for a tell. Nothing. Just the smirk that I wanted to pistol whip off his face.
“You’re not as smart as you think you are, Cahill.” He nodded at Moira. “You think I’m just going to show up at some house without doing research? We’re called discreet for a reason.”
