“I guess we’ll have to get into this soon,” I said. “Ron said there was another threat this morning.”
Her eyes reddened but she covered by clearing her throat and getting up. “I’ll show you the note.” She went to her office and brought back a flat nine-by-twelve envelope, which she handed me without a word.
I brushed grit from the back of it, opened the flap and pulled out a single sheet of paper. As before, it consisted of plain white paper with cut-out magazine words and letters.
IT WON’T BE THAT HARD TO GET YOU.
The eight words stood out starkly.
“You found this by the front door?” I asked.
“Yes. Right by M . . . by Misty.” She swallowed hard. “It was about noon. I’d just gotten back from Sam’s place.”
“It was inside the courtyard, right?”
“Yes, and the gate was still locked.” She paced to the kitchen and back. Rusty raised his head, sensing her agitation. “Charlie, I can’t tell you how vulnerable I felt right then. Someone had done this horrible . . . horrible thing. And they’d gotten right to my front door. I always felt so safe here. I—”
I slipped the note back into the envelope, giving her time to compose herself.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said with more assurance than I actually felt. “Meanwhile, I’d suggest that you skip the rest of the Fiesta. It’s, what, three more days? I don’t like all the publicity surrounding the Balloon Fiesta and the record attempt. You can do the record attempt next week, after all the hoopla is over, do it quietly somewhere away from the crazy atmosphere of the big event. If someone wants to take away your moment in the spotlight, we can simply disarm them.”
“This is all crazy. If they kill me that will keep my name out of the papers? I hardly think so. If anything, wouldn’t that turn me into some kind of heroic figure, cut down in the prime of life, so much to achieve if not for these tragic events, blah, blah.”
She had a point.
“So if it’s not just about preventing you from setting the record, it’s personal. Someone who wants to see you hurt.”
“Dead, Charlie. You can say it—he wants me dead. My own father wants me dead.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” I told her about Ron’s surveillance of her father and the fact that he seemed to be accounted for all night. I also did a quick recap of my visits to Chuck Bukovsky’s place and the connection with Ryan Tamsin and his brother.
“But why now?” I mused. “Chuck or Ryan could have killed you any time. Why during Balloon Fiesta, why with all this publicity? Unless it’s not one of them. It could be someone who’s looking for notoriety himself.”
“So any garden variety nut case, then.”
“Could be. Rachael, why aren’t we calling the police? There are stalker laws, they could be doing something about this.”
She picked at a cuticle. “Gray won’t let me.”
“Won’t let you?” My voice rose and I fought to keep it calm. “Rachael, it’s your life, not his. He isn’t getting these notes.” His pets aren’t being murdered.
“I—I don’t . . .” The doorbell interrupted her. Rusty leaped to his feet and raced to the door, barking madly.
“Go in the back bedroom,” I whispered. “Lock yourself in. I’ll handle the door.”
Retrieving the Beretta from my duffle near the kitchen counter, I stuffed it into my waistband and pulled my sweater over it. I glanced out the peephole and remembered that visitors rang from the courtyard gate. Had I relocked it after taking Rusty for his inspection tour?
The bell rang again.
I opened the door and let Rusty race to the gate, his frantic barking filling the quiet evening. I grabbed his collar and he quieted, although he pulled relentlessly toward the closed wooden gate.
“Who is it?” I shouted.
A man’s voice said something too muffled for me to catch. I opened the little peep window in the gate and scanned the sidewalk. He was alone.
It was Grayson Fairfield.
Chapter 16
I opened the gate, keeping a grip on Rusty’s collar. The harder I tugged at him, the more he lunged, a maneuver simply designed to get out of my restraint. He’s never actually attacked anyone. But they don’t know that.
“Where’s my sister?” Fairfield demanded, edging away from the dog. Considering I’d only met the man once, I thought it would at least be polite to say hello first.
“Inside,” I told him.
He threw a disdainful look at Rusty, then marched past us.
I quieted the dog with some overly perky words and he settled down. I relocked the gate and the front door. Grayson and Rachael stood in the living room, already in the midst of a conversation that looked intense.
“. . . would be smart,” Rachael was saying.
“Nielson is an important client.” His voice was firm.
“Charlie, you remember my brother.” Rachael, at least, managed some of the pleasantries.
I nodded. I definitely remembered that he’d done nearly everything he could to sabotage our efforts to keep Rachael’s whereabouts quiet and to watch their father.
“Gray thinks I need to be flying tomorrow, and I was just trying to tell him that we’d been discussing that.”
I turned on him. “How can you ask your sister to put herself at risk, all for publicity?”
“Ms. Parker, this world record is a once-in-a-lifetime event. We’ve worked for months getting it set up, getting the media to pay attention, making sure she’s got coverage from top publications. We cannot afford the huge letdown, which will undoubtedly make it into the news, if she simply quits now.”
I couldn’t believe I heard him correctly. I glanced at Rachael. She’d backed up to the kitchen counter and stood nervously twisting her rings on her fingers. I turned back to Grayson but he was already on his way to the door.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said to Rachael, dismissing me as if I were just a pesky insect. “Nielson will be there and so will you.”
He turned on his heel and walked out.
“Rachael?”
She busied herself at the kitchen sink, rinsing our coffee mugs and wiping a spotlessly clean counter.
“I’ll just say one thing, then it’s your decision.” I took a firm stance in the living room, not taking my eyes from her. “You’re a successful woman in her thirties, ambitious, smart and pretty. I don’t know why you’re still taking orders from your older brother, but your life is on the line here. Not his. Yours. Make your own choices.”
I walked out the front door. Rusty trailed along, probably hoping we were leaving now. Fairfield’s car was gone and the street looked quiet. I relocked the front gate, then the front door, then stomped through the house and went room to room checking windows and doors. Rachael had returned to the living room and staked out one of the leather sofas, her gaze blank and focused somewhere in the empty space in the middle of the room. It was fully dark now and I tacked up our curtain of sheets across the back wall of windows. When I’d finished that, I pulled my pistol from the waistband of my jeans and pointedly set it on the coffee table between us.
Rachael’s face seemed more drawn than before. Tears dampened her cheeks and one round droplet threatened to plop from her chin at any moment.
“Charlie, you’re—”
From deep inside my purse, my cell phone rang. I held up an index finger indicating for her to hold that thought while I turned to locate my bag.
Ron started right in. “I just had an irate phone call from Grayson Fairfield,” he said. From his tone of voice I knew this wouldn’t be pleasant. “Our client didn’t like your attitude. He says you mouthed off to him.”
I glanced at Rachael and decided this wasn’t the place. I walked down the hall and closed myself into the guestroom. “I thought Rachael was our client. And I didn’t like his attitude either, Ron.” I recapped my side of it, hating the defensive tone in my voice.
“Just remember that the financ
ing for my new house depends on him. I’m not going to live in this crappy apartment forever, and if my house deal falls through it’s on your head.”
He hung up and I childishly dialed him right back, launching on him before he’d said a word.
“Just tell me, Ron, what’s our job here? Are we trying to keep Rachael safe? Or are we merely here to suck up to Grayson Fairfield? I just need to know what I’m really here for. Think it over and let me know in the morning because I’m completely tired of this bullshit tonight.” I clicked off and tossed the phone on the nightstand.
My neck twinged with pain and I sat heavily on the edge of the bed, holding my head with both hands. Great job, Charlie. Now who’s the one taking orders from her older brother? Now the client’s mad at me, the client’s brother is mad at me, Ron’s mad at me, and my husband hasn’t been any too happy recently, either. To emphasize the point, Rusty whined out in the hall, unhappy that he’d been shut out. Great, even my dog’s mad at me.
I opened the door and he greeted me with his special I-love-you-no-matter-what doggie kisses. My heart softened and hot tears prickled at my eyes. I blinked them back and strode out into the hall.
My duffle and purse lay on the floor near the kitchen counter. I gathered them up. “Everything is secure.” I said to Rachael. “Sleep well.”
“Charlie, wait.” She stood up and took my arm.
I spun around.
“You were right,” she said quietly. “I have to make my own decisions. I can’t let Grayson keep pushing me around.”
“We all make our choices,” I said.
“Yes, and I’ve been dumb about mine, that’s for sure.” She indicated the two leather sofas and we each took one, facing each other. “I want this world record. I want it a lot. But I’ve let myself get caught up in Gray’s whole publicity machine and the idea of making it a big event. The idea that it should take place at Fiesta, with national media and a hundred thousand people watching . . . that’s all dressing. The record will be official as long as the FAA observer records it on that little instrument of theirs. Really, other than my crew, I don’t need anyone else to be there.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye with the cuff of her sweater.
“But it’s been a big rush, hasn’t it? Admit it, the reporters and the well-wishers, it’s all been pretty heady.”
“Yeah. It has.” She sniffed loudly and walked to the kitchen counter for a tissue. After a discreet little nose-blow she returned to her seat. “So, what now?”
Fatigue had begun to drape over me like a shawl. My brain felt like mush.
“Let’s sleep on it,” I said. “I don’t think you should fly tomorrow, not after the message you got today. Let’s sleep as late as we can in the morning and wake up with a fresh perspective. I’ll come up with something.”
A wave of gratitude flushed over her face, relaxing the ridge between her brows. She was merely substituting my orders for Grayson’s, I realized, and we’d have to have a talk about that. Later.
“Unplug your phones unless you want them all to be ringing before dawn,” I said.
“Good idea. He’ll be mad as a hornet, won’t he?”
“Yeah, but he’ll survive it.”
With a plan finally established she gathered her mushy Kleenexes and took them to the kitchen trash. “I’ll call Sam and tell him to get the word out to the crew that they have another day off.”
I picked up my bags once more and headed toward my room. Rusty would sleep near my bed as usual, but by leaving the door open I hoped he’d prowl around the house if he heard any noises. For myself, I didn’t plan to hear a thing until at least eight o’clock. Beyond that, I’d have to come up with something—I just didn’t know what.
Chapter 17
My cell phone vibrated gently on the nightstand at some point while it was still dark in the room. A one-eyed peek at the clock told me it was five a.m. Hunh-uh. Not yet. I let it go. At eight-thirty, I yawned and stretched and checked the messages. Two, both from Ron. I’d slept through the second one. I dialed his apartment.
“Gonna bite my head off again?” he said cautiously. “Geez, Charlie, you’ve been a guy’s nightmare lately. All these moods. Up, down, bitching one minute, crying the next. You pregnant or something?”
“No!” The denial popped out automatically but my mind went into some kind of white zone. No, couldn’t be. Ron was still talking and I forced myself to catch up.
“. . . you and Rachael didn’t go out to the field this morning,” he said.
“Uh, yeah.” I fumbled to bring myself back to the conversation. “That’s right. It was an executive decision on my part, but her safety was worth more than her brother’s publicity plan. Plus, the lady is frazzled. It’s been a hard week for her.”
“I agree. When Fairfield woke me up, at 4:51 this morning, I told him to give you ladies a break and to chill. He wasn’t happy but I had to stand firm and agree with you.”
Well, well. Chalk up another name to the list of Those Who Are No Longer Mad At Me.
“Thanks, Ron. I appreciate the support.” Finally. “So, what now? Should Rachael pull entirely out of the Fiesta? Is there anything we can do to catch this guy by the weekend?”
“Working on it.” I heard papers rustling. “I got back the trace on that phone number you gave me. It was a phone booth near Winrock.”
I visualized the massive shopping mall. There were apartments and residential neighborhoods all around it, plus hundreds of offices and shops, and freeway exits feeding right into it. The trace didn’t help us a bit.
We talked a little about the notes with their cutout magazine lettering, but decided without police involvement and the ability to check fingerprints those wouldn’t provide any help either.
“So, what’s our next step?” I asked. There were still so many unanswered questions.
“The balloonists will be finished flying in another hour or so, then there are airshow events, and I’m not sure what else. This evening there’s a barbeque for the pilots and crews. I think we may learn something if Rachael goes. But we need to be there with her. It’ll be a big crowd and it’s going to take some manpower to spot any danger.”
“Can we get into the party?”
“Talk to Rachael about it. Every pilot got a packet of crew tickets. If she hasn’t already handed them out, get a couple for us.”
“And if they’re already gone?”
“Tell her it’s urgent. Get her to figure out a way.”
“I heard water running in her bathroom a minute ago, so she’s up. I’ll find out about the tickets soon.” I closed my bedroom door and lowered my voice. “Ron, there’s something else I need to ask you.”
“Uh huh.”
“Grayson Fairfield. He was really, really upset last night when I suggested that Rachael back out of the Fiesta.”
“And?”
“Why? Why is he so set on this world record being done so publicly? As Rachael pointed out to me last night, the record is real whether it happens in a public place or not. With Grayson it seems like this whole thing is about the publicity. He’s completely adamant that she become a celebrity over this. Why? What’s he got to gain? Can we trust him?”
“Trust him? God, Charlie, he’s trying to save his sister’s life!”
“Are we sure about that?”
He spluttered then got quiet.
“Something to think about. That’s all I’m saying.” I could almost hear the cogs turning in his head. “Look, we always watch for motive, means and opportunity, don’t we? Well, who else has better opportunity, who else has the means whenever he wants. All we need to know is the motive. We know he took his father’s side against Rachael in the past.”
“I think this is going a bit far, Charlie.” The protest in his voice wasn’t quite as strong as before.
“Okay, just keep it in mind. I know you don’t want to piss him off because of your loan application, Ron, but let’s be realistic. You can find a mortgage somewhere els
e. I’ll help you if you want. But right now let’s don’t rule out any possible suspect. Anyone.”
He agreed, albeit grudgingly. “I’ll keep you posted,” he finally said.
I looked at my stomach as I slipped into jeans and a sweater. Nah. I put Ron’s stupid suggestion out of my mind and padded barefoot through the quiet house. Rachael’s shower was still running so she hadn’t overheard any of my conversation with Ron. Better to keep my suspicions to myself for now. I took down the makeshift sheet curtain and let Rusty out through the French doors to the back yard. While he made the rounds of the walled yard, I stepped out the front door and examined the front of the property. No new messages and nothing seemed disturbed.
Back in the kitchen I started some coffee and found a package of poppyseed muffins in the breadbox. From Rachael’s end of the hall came the blare of a hair dryer.
I tidied my room, brushed my teeth and swiped on a smear of lipstick. By the time the coffee was ready, I’d repacked my duffle and filled Rusty’s bowl with doggie nuggets.
Sun filled the big living room and kitchen, warming the tile floor and brightening the potted flowers in the patio area. I filled a mug with coffee and took it out to one of the comfortable padded chairs. The sun over the Sandias accented the city’s whitish morning haze, and a few balloons in the air showed as dark dots over the north end of town. I sipped at my caffeine and wanted to savor a peaceful moment but Ron’s offhand comment kept nagging at me. I struggled to remember my cycle but couldn’t come up with a date. Surely I wasn’t really late yet. Surely, if I was, it was only because of the crazy schedule I’d been keeping and everything would straighten out next week. It would. Drake and I had talked about the possibility of having children and pretty well decided we liked our lives without them. But neither of us had taken steps to make that decision permanent. I closed my eyes and refused to think about it.
While the past twenty-four hours had been busy, the next twenty-four could potentially bring much more. I thought about driving to Santa Fe and fought against it. It would be so much more pleasant to sit here in the sun for about six hours, ignoring everyone else’s problems. Rusty came over and laid his big reddish head on my lap.
Balloons Can Be Murder: The Ninth Charlie Parker Mystery Page 13
