“I think the first thing Dwayne did was lock the door,” I said. “Then he dumped everything out of my duffle bag and started to go through it. Then, the other guy,” I glanced at Phil briefly, “kicked in the door. He must’ve heard me screaming. I think Dwayne had the gun under his jumpsuit. You know how they’re made with a slit instead of a pocket so you can reach into your pants underneath?” I looked at Phil again. “I’m sorry he’s dead. He was just trying to help me.”
Phil didn’t say anything.
“You say you were unconscious during all this?” Lopez asked.
I nodded.
“Then you can’t really know what went down. Unless, maybe you were semiconscious? Sort of aware?”
“I was completely out cold. But, when I came to I noticed that my bag had been emptied, everything dumped out. The door frame was splintered, the lock just hanging, broken. But the door wasn’t locked before, just closed.”
“I’m sure you can see, Valentine,” Lopez said, “that it’s a little hard to believe that someone who’s been knocked unconscious, the way you say you were, and who wakes up next to a dead body, could have the presence of mind to notice all these little details you’re telling me about.”
“Noticing—it’s what I do, every minute. You, Inspector Lopez are wearing unmatched socks. One’s black and one’s black-brown. You’ve lost weight recently. Look at your belt. The leather’s worn and stretched out at the notch where you used to wear it. Why do you think I didn’t buy Agent Philip’s story? Check out the apartment.” I gestured toward the chintz curtains and the shelves of figurines. “Does she look like someone who’d decorate her place in pink and purple flowers? Or someone who’d collect Lladrós? She didn’t even know they were Lladrós.”
Phil gave me a level look. “You’re a lot like your mother.”
I slammed the soda can down on the coffee table. “I’m nothing like my mother.”
“Whoa, there,” Lopez said. “Take it easy.”
I wrapped my arms around my middle and sank back into the sofa. The gesture with the soda can felt good emotionally, but had wreaked havoc with the broken rib.
Lopez turned to Phil. “Let me remind you, Agent Philips, that you’re supposed to be helping us with our investigation. Upsetting a witness isn’t helping. Just like keeping our crime scene unit from doing their jobs isn’t helping.”
“As I already told you, Inspector Lopez,” Phil said “Clarifications will be made shortly about who is helping whom.”
I stood up—slowly because my side required it. They both swiveled their gazes in my direction. “I’ve told you everything I know. I have something really important to do, and I can’t wait around for you to settle your internecine conflict.”
“Our what?” Lopez asked.
“Turf war,” Phil said. She cocked her head on one side and looked at me as she said it, as though she only now realized I might have a brain.
A tall man with a buzz cut appeared in the doorway. He carried himself as if his suit had epaulets and gold stars. Phil jumped to her feet. “Sir.”
He nodded in acknowledgement. His gaze paused briefly on Lopez before settling on me. He gave the impression that he was as good at noticing as I was. Only not in a friendly way. This had to be Phil’s boss.
Phil approached him. “This is Inspector Lopez, SFPD, and Valentine Hill.” She turned to us. “Special Agent in Charge Williams.”
Lopez stood up and shook Williams’ hand. I settled for waggling my fingers at him. “Hi.”
“A word, Inspector Lopez?” Lopez crossed to join Williams. He probably figured he was finally going to get some cooperation from the FBI. Phil followed on his heels. Williams turned. “Philips, you stay with the witness. We’ll speak in a moment.”
Phil froze. Williams waited until Lopez was in the hall before closing the door. She rejoined me, her expression shuttered. “Why don’t you sit down? We should talk.”
Instead of sitting back down on the sofa, I perched on the arm. “So that’s your boss. Guess you were right. This is a big investigation if he’s taking a hand in it.”
Phil sighed and ran her hands through her short hair. “Bigger than you know. The man who was killed, Eric Staller, was also an agent. That’s why I needed you to stay here. I had orders not to alert the SFPD that Eric was an agent until SAC Williams got here. They couldn’t think they’d be primary in the investigation. Plus without orders from higher-ups, they’d send all communications out on unsecured channels. Which, naturally, they did.”
“That’s why you’re mad at me. I called the police. But honestly I simply couldn’t believe Elizabeth was working with you.”
“I get that. And I apologize if I offended you just now. I only meant that your mother…”
“Call her Elizabeth, please.”
“Okay. I only meant that Elizabeth has the same ability to notice details and recognize their meaning. That’s all.”
“I know the difference between right and wrong and always try to do what’s right. The only right thing, as far as Elizabeth is concerned, is to get what she wants. Two completely different people.”
“I can see that. Believe it or not, she really is helping us. Right now she’s crucial to our ability to proceed. And I believe that there’s a connection between Dwayne and our investigation. So please tell me—this Aunt June you mentioned. Is she your mother’s or your father’s sister?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Why would she want to know about Aunt June? “She was my maternal grandmother’s step-daughter, although she was a lot older than my grandmother.”
“Your mother’s half sister?”
“Stepsister. Elizabeth was ten when my grandmother married Aunt June’s father. So Aunt June wasn’t really related to me. But she was a good, kind person and took me in when Elizabeth went to prison.”
“She’s deceased?”
“Five years ago.”
“And your grandmother?”
“I never knew her. Elizabeth told me she’d died.” Then it hit me. “You don’t know where Elizabeth is, do you?”
Phil made no pretense she didn’t know what I was talking about. “We had a procedure in place for emergency exits like the one she had to make today. But we hadn’t planned on there being a bystander.”
“You mean me?”
She nodded. “We came back to get you out, too.”
“And Elizabeth?”
“She didn’t stay where I left her and hasn’t made contact yet.”
“You can’t be expecting her to call you?”
“There’s a lot riding on this operation for her, too. I thought—I still think she’ll make contact.”
“She’s a thousand miles away by now.”
“We have a watch in place at the airlines, at train and bus terminals.”
“Car rental agencies?”
“She doesn’t have a valid driver’s license.”
“You think she doesn’t.”
Phil shrugged. “If you know of anyone she might contact who’d help her out of a jam, would you give me a name?”
Before I could answer, Lopez and Williams came through the door followed by a half dozen more FBI types. “Special Agent Philips will show you the relevant portion of the recording,” Williams said.
I looked at Phil. “What recording?”
“You understand, of course,” Williams went on, “that you’re not to repeat to anyone else the name that’s mentioned by Beth Hull and by the perpetrator. The agency will pursue that line of inquiry.”
Lopez nodded. “Understood.”
I looked at Williams. “What recording?”
Williams gave me his flat gaze and ignored me. He nodded to Phil, who crossed to the media center.
I stood in front of Lopez and blocked his line of sight. “What recording?”
&nbs
p; “The one you starred in with this scuzz, Dwayne. They had a hidden camera running the whole time.”
Chapter Four
The picture was in high-resolution color, not the grainy black and white I’d expected. Elizabeth looked just the same as I remembered, which made for a weird time-machine effect, since it’d been nine years since I’d seen her. The haircut was different, but she always changed her hairstyle to suit the role. Never the color, though. She believed that being a “true” blonde gave her an edge.
I watched the scene unfold on the television that wasn’t a television, just a monitor for watching the action in Elizabeth’s apartment. On screen, Elizabeth crossed her living room and spoke into the intercom by the front door. The voice on the intercom was indistinct. The hidden camera’s sound quality didn’t match that of the image.
“You’re delivering what from Mr. Kroy?” Elizabeth said into the intercom. She turned and lifted her face toward the camera, her eyebrows raised.
An indistinct answer came over the intercom. “A car? You mean, he’s in the car?” Another muffled answer. “I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. Why don’t you come up?” Elizabeth pressed the button to open the downstairs door, turned to the camera again and gave a palms-up shrug.
“She knew you were watching?” Lopez asked, not taking his eyes from the screen.
“The bell to her apartment rings in here, too,” Phil said.
“And the phone?”
Phil nodded.
Lopez looked like he wanted to ask some more questions, but didn’t because on the television screen we saw Elizabeth open the door for Dwayne and let him into her apartment. She left the door ajar and stood with her back to the camera so that we could get a clear look at Dwayne.
“I couldn’t hear you very clearly over the intercom,” Elizabeth said. “Something about Mr. Kroy and a car?”
Dwayne held up a key ring. “I’m delivering your new car. It’s a present from Mr. Kroy.” He looked like the same Dwayne I’d encountered, but sounded different.
“A new car? For me?” Overdoing it a bit, but Dwayne seemed to buy it.
“It’s a Mercedes.” He jiggled the keys.
“That’s a Mercedes emblem on the key ring,” Lopez said. “Did he really have one?”
“I don’t know,” Phil said.
Back on the screen, Elizabeth was nearly jumping up and down. “I just can’t believe it! Bobby’s been wonderful to me, but I never in my life imagined he’d give me a car.”
“I’m supposed to give you a rundown of all the features before I hand over the keys. Can you come down now?” Dwayne still didn’t sound like the Dwayne I’d met.
“It’s a script,” I said.
Phil reached over and paused the picture. “What do you mean?”
“He’s giving a memorized speech. That’s why he sounds so wooden. He’s been coached, but he’s a bad actor.”
Phil gave me a thoughtful look and pressed the play button.
“Can I come down? Try and stop me!” Elizabeth doing a bit of bad acting, too. Not usual for her. Was she scared? “I’ll just grab my coat and be right with you.” We watched her turn and flick a sideways glance at the camera as she headed for the bedroom.
Phil paused the picture a second time. “The word ‘coat’ was our panic button. She came straight through the closet. We had disguises here for her, but she didn’t want to wait. We took our emergency exit route. It’s a back way that gets us to the cross street without being seen from the front. We always have a car there.” She turned to face me. “We saw you coming up the stairs.”
“I didn’t see you.”
Phil punched a button and the scene changed to the hallway where a couple of cops were talking. “We have cameras on the stairs, in the elevator, and the halls.”
“Did she say anything?”
Phil’s gazed skittered away for a brief moment. “She was panicky. She knew Kroy would never give her a car and figured that Dwayne wanted to kidnap her or worse. All she wanted was to get away. We just headed down the back way. You missed us by about fifteen seconds. As soon as we were in the car, I called Agent Staller to come get you. I left her in a safe place and came right back, but too late.”
“Can we see the rest of it now?” Lopez asked.
Phil pushed play again and we watched a nervous Dwayne waiting for Elizabeth. He shifted from one foot to the other, patted his hip, and shifted his feet again.
“Checking his piece,” Lopez commented. “He’s not used to packing, has to touch it, reassure himself it’s still there. Like, where else would it be?”
I watched Dwayne visibly jump when he heard the knock on the door, and then I heard my voice, faint but audible calling him Dwayne and asking for Elizabeth. From then on, it played out as I remembered it, only different and, in its own way, freakier, because I was watching it instead of living it. When the replay reached the point of Dwayne kicking me, I felt the others glancing at me, but I kept my gaze on the screen. I wanted to know what had happened after I blacked out.
It was worse than I’d imagined, though I’d come close in my guess. Once I was out cold, Dwayne stopped kicking me, but the rage was still evident in his body. He walked stiff-legged over to my duffle bag, grabbed it up and dumped everything out on the floor. He didn’t have time to pick through my things, because the pounding on the door and muffled shouts of Phil’s partner had him spinning around and reaching into his pocket for his gun. He crossed to where I lay and knelt down next to me, his back to the door and his body shielding the gun from view.
The door exploded open and Staller appeared in the doorway. “Move away from her.”
Dwayne didn’t move. “I hit her. I’m sorry. But, she was crazy, man. I didn’t know what to do. She was just nuts, hitting me and screaming.” Dwayne sounded frantic and worried. A much better actor when he was ad-libbing. “Can you help me? I’m afraid she’s hurt.”
Staller came into the room slowly. “I said, move away from her. Now.”
Dwayne swiveled his head around and gazed at Staller, then still kneeling, he twisted around and fired his gun. Staller fell to the floor. Dwayne rose to his feet, smiling.
The room closed in around me.
“You okay?” Lopez said and took my elbow. He led me to the nearest chair and waited until I sat down. “Can I get you something? Some water?”
I looked around the room. It was a capacity crowd, only this was one time I didn’t want an audience. “Do they have to be here?”
Lopez looked at Williams, who with a jerk of his head toward the door indicated the half dozen suits should leave.
“Did you see the look on his face? That smile?” I whispered.
Lopez crouched down next to me and peered at my face. “It was tough to see that,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot, but I have to tell you that one’s going to stay with me. It took a lot of guts to take him on and fight back.”
“I shouldn’t have screamed. He really hated that.”
“Don’t say that. You did right to fight him. And, hey, you looked pretty good there with the old one-two. You take lessons or something?”
“My Uncle Rocky taught me.”
“Uncle Rocky? You didn’t mention an uncle before.” This from Phil, still looking for a way to find Elizabeth.
“I had to call all of Elizabeth’s husbands ‘uncle,’” I said before she could ask. “So he wasn’t a real uncle, and they weren’t real husbands, either. Just marks.”
“Why didn’t Staller identify himself and draw his weapon?” Lopez asked Phil.
“Our orders were to protect the operation and the informant. We didn’t know who this Dwayne was. If he came from the person Elizabeth’s gotten close to, then she’d have been blown and endangered her life.”
She turned to me. “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle. It
looks like you took a real beating. I can get the paramedics in here to see you, or have you taken to the emergency room, whichever you prefer.”
“Don’t bother. Please.” All I needed was another encounter with official-type people asking for my identification. “I’m all right. I just want to go now. You don’t need me. You never did. You can’t keep me any longer, can you?”
Williams stepped in. “You can go, but don’t leave the city. We’ll need an address and phone number.”
“Is Inspector Lopez going to work with you?”
“Of course. The chief has assured me the SFPD will participate in a joint task force to track down the killer.”
“Okay, then I nominate him as my go-to guy.” I held out a hand to Lopez. “Give me your number, and I’ll call you with my info.”
Williams looked like he wanted to object.
“I’ve already said I don’t lie. You have to believe me now.”
Lopez pulled a business card from an inside pocket and handed it to me.
I shoved the card in my back pocket. “What about my things? Can you give them to me or do I have to go back in there and get them?”
Lopez looked at Williams, who shook his head and said, “Our ERT Unit isn’t finished yet. If you’ll write up a list of your belongings, we’ll see they’re returned to you.”
I stuck out my chin. “Write a list? You saw Dwayne dump everything out. How hard would it be to figure out what was in my duffel bag and what was already in the apartment? It’s not rocket science. It’s not even third-grade science. The toothbrush belongs to me. The bloody bullet belongs to you.”
“I understand you’re upset,” Williams said.
“Do you understand that that’s everything I own in there?”
“Look, if you need money, I can get you some from the victim’s fund,” Lopez said.
“I don’t want charity, but I need my props.”
“Your props?”
“For my magic act. It’s all in my duffle bag. Or it was.”
“We’ll get your things to you as soon as possible. Wait here, and I’ll get a patrolman to give you a ride to wherever you’re going,” he said.
Magician's Daughter Page 5
