REASON TO DOUBT

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Childs. If you’re right about this, we’ll be doing a whole lot more than just talking.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I tried to call Sam from my car as I left Venice Beach. If Scarface from the club had been the Model Slayer’s partner and had been following Xstacy and killed her, Sam needed to know, and fast. I didn’t want Sam hearing about it on the news. While the police weren’t about to release Xstacy’s name until they had a positive ID, I knew once Detective Soto checked out the van, it wouldn’t be long before they would put two and two together and the name Stacy Minor would be everywhere. My call went immediately to voicemail. Rather than leave another message, I decided to drive over to UCLA and wait at the Tri-Delt house for Sam to return from class. Bad news was best delivered in person.

  I was met at the door of the Tri-Delt house by two sorority sisters. Both blonde and smiley, and similarly matched in size and shape. It made me wonder if sorority sisters had all been cast and dyed from the same mold, they all looked so much alike. Both had gold delta lavaliers around their necks, books in their hands, and appeared to be on the way to class.

  The taller of the two asked if she could help me.

  “I’m here to see Sam,” I said.

  “Sam?” The girl frowned and shook her head. “Sorry, we don’t have any Sams here. You sure you have the right house?”

  “Samantha maybe? She’s a dancer,” I said.

  “Oh, you must mean Sam Miller. You do know she doesn’t live here?”

  “And she’s not a sister.” The shorter girl scrunched her nose like I should know better.

  “But I was just here a week ago. She was teaching a yoga class. We spoke in the parlor.”

  “That may be,” the shorter girl said. “She teaches a yoga class here. But she’s not a Tri Delt.”

  I bit my lip to keep my mouth from falling open. If she wasn’t a Tri Delt, who was she? Was she even a college student?

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  Both girls looked at each other, then back at me and shook their heads in unison.

  “You might check over at the Wooden Center.” The tall girl pointed across the street to campus. “They do dance classes there. Maybe someone knows there. Sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I watched as the two passed by me in their short mini-skirts and laced up sandals. Then picked up my phone and called Sam again and left another message.

  “Sam, it’s Carol Childs. I need to see you. It’s important. I’m on campus, and it’s almost noon. Call me when you get this.”

  My next call went to Cate’s cell phone. If I were going to be hanging around the university, I might as well grab lunch with my daughter. When she didn’t answer, I tried the UCLA pathology department directly. An administrative assistant answered, and I asked to speak to Cate.

  “I’m sorry, Cate called in sick today. Is there someone else who might be able to help you?”

  Sick? Cate wasn’t sick. If anything she was still stewing about last night and my request she not see Pete again. “No,” I said. “I’ll call back later.”

  My number one priority quickly went from Sam to my daughter. At least I’d seen Cate’s car parked next to mine in the garage when I left this morning. But if she hadn’t come into work, where was she? And why?

  I called the house, Misty answered as though she had been waiting for my call. The first words out of her mouth were, “It’s Xstacy, isn’t it?”

  “The cops don’t know yet. But I think so. Is Cate home?”

  “Not now. But she was. She got a call right after you left this morning and bolted out of here. Didn’t even finish her breakfast. Then about an hour ago, she came back.” I felt my breakfast roll in my stomach. “She wanted to borrow my van, and she wasn’t alone.”

  “She had Pete with her?” I asked.

  “Not only Pete, but his roommate too.”

  I closed my eyes and bit my bottom lip. Cate, what are you doing? We talked about this, you know this isn’t a good idea.

  “What was I going to do, Carol? She had the keys in her hand and said she needed to get Pete and Billy out of town. They couldn’t be seen in Pete’s van, and her car is too small.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “It looked to me like they were going camping. She took extra blankets and water with her.”

  “Dammit, Misty. She can’t be doing this. The cops will arrest her for being an accessory.”

  “Carol, you need to trust her. Cate’s a smart girl. She’ll be fine.”

  “I wish I could be as confident of that as you are, Misty.”

  I called Chase when I got back to my office. I was relieved when he picked up and I could hear his voice. It was good to know somebody had my back. In a world that was beginning to spin out of control with dead bodies and my daughter missing, he felt like a solid rock.

  “I need you,” I said.

  “About time.”

  “I’m serious, Chase. Cate took off with Misty’s van this morning. Both Pete and Billy are with her.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? How?” I felt like I had been hit with a cold dishrag. Any warm fuzzy feelings I had about Chase burst into flames of frustration. How could Chase know something about my daughter I didn’t?

  “Cate called this morning. She told me she was on her way to Venice Beach to get Pete. He called her after he heard the police helicopters hovering above his place and saw a mob gathering out front. You ask me, Cate did the only thing she could do. Got those boys out of there before the neighbors pulled them out of the house and LAPD had an incident on their hands.”

  “What are you talking about? My daughter just became an accessory to a–”

  “Hang on there, Mom. It’s not all bad news. After Cate called me, I phoned my buddies over at robbery-homicide and told them what Cate was up to. Turns out they appreciated me sharing with them what she planned to do. And–” Chase paused.

  “And, what?” I screamed.

  “You sitting down?”

  “I am now.” I threw my bag on my desk and collapsed into my chair.

  “They actually thought it was a good idea.”

  “Good idea? What are you talking about? How is any of this a good idea?”

  “Hear me out, Carol. LAPD’s had a couple of undercover guys following Pete around since his release. Billy too. So far they haven’t seen a thing, and to their knowledge, once Pete got home, neither he nor Billy left the place. But the public doesn’t know that, and the cops were worried if Pete got curious about what was going on at the beach and came outside, with as much publicity as he’s been getting for the model slayings, his neighbors might grab him and tear him apart. The last thing LAPD needs right now is a bunch of vigilantes going after Pete like they did with Richard Ramirez.”

  I was in grade school when Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, was apprehended by an angry neighborhood mob. There wasn’t a girl in my class who hadn’t heard about him and worried he would sneak into her bedroom in the dead of night and strangle her. Over a two-year period, Ramirez had terrorized, raped and tortured more than twenty-five women. He had killed thirteen more before he was caught one night trying to steal a car. Neighbors recognized him from a photo the press had circulated and took matters into their own hands. By the time the police arrived, Ramirez had been clubbed on the head with a tire iron and surrendered to police without an incident. Much as I wasn’t wild about Pete, I hated to think of something similar happening to him.

  “So then neither Pete nor Billy could have had anything to do with the body on the beach this morning?” I asked.

  “Unless those boys are some Houdinis, they didn’t leave the house last night.”

  “Then they’re no longer suspects?

  “They’re not home free yet. But i
t does mean the cops are widening their search.”

  “Meanwhile, they just let Cate take them?”

  “Cate did what they couldn’t, got Pete and Billy out of there without blowing their cover. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Unless you’re her mom.”

  “Relax, Carol, she couldn’t be safer than if she were the president’s daughter. She’s got two of LAPD’s finest trailing her. Besides, she’s driving Misty’s van, which isn’t exactly hard to spot. That old rig of hers can’t go faster than fifty-five. It’s not like she’ll outrun them.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better, Chase.”

  “I could try,” he teased.

  I hung up the phone and checked my office line, then my computer, and cell phone again for messages. I was hoping for something, anything from Sam. There was nothing. No voicemail. No emails. No texts. Not even so much as a Post-it note from Tyler stuck to my computer screen telling me Sam had called. There was, however, a voicemail on my office line from Detective Soto.

  “Ms. Childs, this is Detective Soto, LAPD.” His voice sounded less like a drill sergeant and more engaging than he had this morning. “I wanted to thank you for alerting me to the van parked over off Speedway. Turns out, after my investigators went through it, you were right. The van’s registered to a Stacy Minor. Off the record, I’d say Miss Minor was a match for the body on the beach. ’Course we’ll have to wait for the coroner to make the final call on that. But we did find a Post-it note stuck to the dashboard with Pete Pompidou’s address scribbled on it. I think it’d be helpful if we talked. Give me a call.”

  Soto left his number, and I saved the message. I fully intended to call him back, but not until I had talked to Sheri. After our last conversation about Sam, I had called Pamela’s to see if Sam was working, but she hadn’t come in. If Sheri had any other ideas as to where Sam might be, I wanted to know.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said.

  Sheri yawned a sleepy hello.

  “Did I wake you?”

  In the background, I could hear the whisper of a male voice.

  “You’re not alone,” I said.

  “Not quite.” Sheri giggled. “Max came by last night.”

  I winced. “Sounds like it’s not a good time to talk.”

  “It’s fine. We were just about to get up anyway. Max went to make coffee. We’re doing massages later this afternoon. I need it after last night. I treated him to a martini spin.”

  “Please tell me that’s a drink and not something Sam taught you to do on the pole.” I had visions of Sheri hanging upside down on the dance pole in a death spiral.

  “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much. I don’t know how those girls do it. I feel like a pretzel this morning, and I can’t straighten up. That girl makes everything look easy.”

  “Speaking of Sam,” I said. “I checked Pamela’s. She wasn’t there. I was hoping maybe you’d heard from her again.”

  “No. I’m not scheduled to see her again ’til next Monday. But I do know she mentioned she’d be working a new club on Thursdays. Stilettos downtown. You want to go?”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve me and a pole, I’m in. Meanwhile, if you hear back from Sam before then, ask her to call me. Tell her it’s urgent.”

  * * *

  By the end of the day, I still hadn’t heard from Sam. I could only assume, with all the different news stations reporting the cops finding a body on the beach and the rumors circulating about another possible model slaying, that Sam was spooked and lying low. If she had tried to call Xstacy like I had, she would have heard the same mailbox full announcement, and by late afternoon with no message from her, it would have been even worse. TV stations had all begun to air video of the volleyball court where the joggers had found the body along with footage of Xstacy’s van being towed from behind Pete’s bungalow. One TV reporter, doing a live stand-up from the beach in front of the volleyball court where Stacy’s body had been found, was quick to point out the body was just a block up from LAPD’s prime suspect in the case. It wouldn’t take much for Sam to think the body on the beach was that of her girlfriend.

  Meanwhile, Detective Soto had called twice more, once on my office line and again on my cell. The sound of his voice had grown ever more serious with each call. At one point he implied he hoped I wasn’t dodging his calls. It was important we talked. I saved the messages, and as I headed home, called him from the car. My call went directly to Soto’s voicemail. I left a brief message explaining I was sorry to have missed his call, I’d been in and out of the studio, and would try again later.

  My key was barely in the lock to my condo when the door swung open. Misty stood in front of me. From inside the house, the air was perfumed with the smoky scent of cedar, an incense I knew Misty used to help rekindle her psychic powers.

  “It’s Xstacy, Carol.” Misty stared at me, her eyes covered with milky white cataracts. “I can feel it.”

  “We still don’t have confirmation. But I think so.” I walked past her to the kitchen, put my bag on the counter and reached for a wine glass above the bar. After today I needed something. Misty followed.

  “It’s my fault, Carol. I should have done something. I should have known. I should never have let Xstacy leave the house that morning.”

  “Misty–” I stopped myself, the empty wine glass still in my hand. I wanted to say her feelings were unfounded, but who argues with a psychic? Misty believed what she believed. Who was I to tell her differently?

  “Listen to me, Carol.” Misty put her hand into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out the rabbit’s foot Xstacy had given her. Then took my wine glass from me and thrust the rabbit’s foot into my hand. “You need to keep this with you. Xstacy wanted you to have it. I sense it’s connected to the case and whatever its purpose, it will reveal itself. And very soon.”

  I ran my fingers across the rabbit foot’s soft fur. “You sound a lot like a psychic again, Misty.”

  “The incense helps. It clears my senses.”

  I closed my hand over the foot. “If it’ll make you happy, Misty, fine, I’ll keep it with me. But if there’s anything at all to this lucky charm, I’d be happier if Cate had it with her. Have you heard anything from her?”

  “She called. She wanted me to tell you she’s okay. And not to worry.”

  “Not worry?” I picked up my empty glass and filled it with wine from the open bottle of red on the bar. “How can I do that? My daughter’s off with a man and his roommate the police consider to be possible suspects in a serial murder case, and I’m not supposed to worry? Why doesn’t she call me?”

  “She doesn’t want to upset you.”

  “I’m already upset.”

  “Don’t be. You don’t really think Pete’s capable of murder. What you’re really worried about is Cate forsaking her future for a man you don’t think is worthy of her.”

  I took a sip of my wine. “What are you playing psychologist now, Misty? Because if I had a choice, I think I’d prefer you stick to your psychic predictions and tell me that’s not going to happen.”

  “Cate’s a smart girl, Carol. It’s you I’m worried about. I’ve had this feeling lately it’s you who’s in danger. That somebody’s watching you. Listening to you. Do me a favor. Keep the rabbit’s foot with you.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Wednesday morning as I pulled out of the garage from beneath my condo, I noticed a small black Toyota parked across the street. I didn’t think much of it until I drove away from the curb and headed down Dickens Street. The car followed and took a left turn directly behind me as I turned onto Coldwater Canyon and again as I turned onto Ventura Boulevard. Misty’s warning that somebody was watching me had me looking over my shoulder. It was probably nothing. Just another early morning commuter headed out of the valley. But when I pulled into a gas station a block later with the Toyota on my ta
il, my stomach dropped.

  The Toyota pulled directly behind and tapped my rear fender. Trapping me behind a larger SUV. Fast as I could I locked the doors and watched in my rearview mirror as a short, stocky man wearing a baseball cap got out of the car. He approached the driver’s side of my Jeep glanced at a KTLK decal on my windshield, then rapped on the side window with the back of his knuckles.

  “Your name Carol Childs?” He asked.

  I nodded. My head shaking involuntarily. I didn’t dare open the window.

  He grabbed the left wiper blade. Slapped a blue envelope against the windshield, then replaced the blade and tapped the glass with the palm of his hand. “You’ve been served, ma’am. Have a good day.”

  I watched as he got back in his car, slammed the door, then put the Toyota in reverse and peeled out from behind me and down Ventura Boulevard. With my heart pounding and hands shaking, I unlocked my door and snatched the warrant off the windshield.

  Order to appear before LA County Court...in the matter of Stacy Minor, at the request of LAPD Detective Miguel Soto, you are ordered to appear before the court Monday, July 3rd at 10:00 a.m.

  I crumpled the subpoena in my hand. I should have known this was coming. When Soto called and said he wanted to talk, I suspected it wasn’t just a friendly chat he had in mind. But what could I say? He wasn’t going to be satisfied if I told him Xstacy was a just fan of the station. That she had contacted me to say she didn’t believe Pete was the Model Slayer. Not after I had identified her van, parked so close to Pete’s bungalow. Not when the police knew Cate was dating their number one suspect. Anything I said would lead to further questions. Questions I couldn’t answer without violating my promise to her.

  Tyler was in his office when I arrived. Per usual he was hunched over his keyboard, eyes glued to his computer screen. “What’s up, Childs?”

  I laid the subpoena on his desk. “We need to talk.”

  Tyler’s eyes glanced sideways from the screen and froze on the blue envelope on the desk marked Subpeonea, then looked up at me. “I was afraid this would happen, Carol.”