by Nancy Bush
“Glenda?” Auggie asked.
“My daughter. His niece. My marriage lasted about five minutes, but the one good thing that came out of it was Glenda. She never had much of a relationship with her father, but she connected with Frank. This was all before his mind started failing him, you understand. I thought maybe he’d contact Glenda after he lost his license, but he hasn’t. Glenda lives in the Portland area and that’s where Frank was, the last I heard.”
“Can you give us her address?” Auggie asked.
She made a face. “I suppose. Do you have a notepad, or something?”
Liv reached into her backpack, her hand closing over the manila envelope from her mother. She pulled it out and a pen and invited Angela to write her daughter’s address and phone number on the face of it.
“Laurelton,” Liv said in surprise.
“Yes. Why? Something wrong?” she asked quickly.
“Her last name is Tripp,” Auggie observed.
“Yes, that was my husband’s name.” Angela was focused on Liv, a frown on her face. “What is it you want?” she demanded. To Auggie, she asked, “You think my brother’s done something . . . criminal?”
Liv opened the package and pulled out the photographs, passing the one with the man stalking to the camera to Angela. She reared back a bit, holding the picture away from herself as if it could harm her somehow.
“Where did you get this?” she demanded.
“My mother sent it to me. She’s—”
“Dugan,” Angela said as if it were a revelation. “Your mother’s Deborah Dugan. The woman who hanged herself,” she said, pointing to the picture of Liv’s mother.
“The man in the photo . . . is he your brother?” Auggie asked when Liv didn’t immediately respond.
She nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s Frank.” She turned to Liv again, staring at her. “So, you’re Deborah and Albert’s daughter.”
“That’s right.” Liv’s heart was fluttering with a nameless fear.
“How do you know the Dugans?” Auggie asked.
“Oh, I didn’t. I knew of them from Frank. He was still in love with your mother when this picture was taken.”
“Still?” Liv asked.
“Albert stole her away from Frank, and he never forgave him.”
“What?” Liv asked faintly.
“Ah, you didn’t know. Hmm . . . maybe your mother wanted you to know. Maybe that’s why she sent these to you?” She flipped through the other photos, and said, “That’s poor Sylvia Parmiter, and that’s her husband . . . um . . . Dan, I think. Maybe Don. They all were part of a larger group of friends. I don’t see the LeBlancs here, though.”
“The LeBlancs?” Liv repeated. Her ears were roaring.
“Everett and Patsy LeBlanc. They were friends of Frank’s, and that’s how they met Deborah.”
“I know the LeBlancs. I just didn’t know my mother did,” Liv heard herself squeak.
“Well, I think so. At least Patsy and Deborah were friends. Frank said as much to me, once, when he was in one of his dark moods.” She inclined her head. “There was a time I thought Frank was seeing your mother again. Something he said clued me in, but when I asked him about it he flatly denied it. Deborah was married to Albert by then, so maybe not.”
Liv’s head was reeling. It was more information than she could take in all at once.
“Why did you say ‘poor’ Sylvia Parmiter?” Auggie asked.
“I don’t know if you remember, but there was a serial killer in the area of Rock Springs about that time. He strangled a number of women and left them in fields and ditches and in the foothills.” She lifted a hand and dropped it into her lap, unaware of both Auggie and Liv’s shock. “Sylvia was one of his victims.”
As if she suddenly heard the accusation in her words, her hand flew upward. “That’s not what this is about, is it? My brother did not kill those women! That was hysteria. Nothing more!”
“At the time, there was the suggestion that your brother was the serial killer?” Auggie asked carefully while Liv gripped the arm of the bench.
“Oh, people were hysterical. All kinds of accusations were thrown around! It was a witch hunt, and I always thought Albert was behind it!” Angela practically cried. “He was jealous of Frank. And I’m sure Patsy had something to do with it, too. She didn’t like Frank. But my brother was innocent of all charges!”
“Patsy didn’t like Frank?” Liv repeated.
“And he didn’t like her much, either. Why do you think he’s coming after her for the camera? He didn’t want her taking his picture.”
Everything rearranged itself in Liv’s head. Her parents. Their relationship with each other and with their friends. Patsy LeBlanc Owens. Angela was a wealth of information but she didn’t seem to know that Patsy was Liv’s birth mother.
“You’re saying Patsy LeBlanc took this picture?” Auggie repeated.
“I’ve seen this picture before. It’s from Frank’s camera. He must’ve given the photos to Deborah.” She looked from Liv to Auggie and back again. “Patsy has always wanted to crucify my brother. I’m surprised you haven’t talked to her yet. She still lives in the Rock Springs area, as far as I know. Married another guy. Owens. Barkley Owens. Go ask her, if you want more information, just don’t believe a word she says about Frank.”
The trip back down the freeway from Seattle to Portland was about three-and-a-half hours, but it went by in a flash. Liv was full of questions that she didn’t know how to start asking. Auggie kept looking at her, checking to see how she was doing, but she was incapable of knowing. He alternately checked with Wes “Weasel” Pelligree, who had asked for a warrant for Navarone’s records since Halo Valley Security Hospital had been less than approachable without one.
Liv could hear both sides of the conversation, and when Pelligree said, “I’ve got a theory,” though Auggie tried like mad to learn what it was, the detective wouldn’t say. “I should know by the time you get back,” was all he would answer.
They were crossing the Glenn Jackson Bridge, which spanned the Columbia between Washington and Oregon, when Liv finally said, “I want to go see Patsy Owens.”
“Now?”
“She lied to us about Navarone. Maybe she knows where he is.”
He checked the clock on the dashboard, then phoned Pelligree once more. “I’m going to be a little later than I originally thought. Come on. Tell me what you’ve got.” A pause, while he listened, then, “Damn you, Weasel. I’m taking a detour to Rock Springs and when I get back, you’re talking.”
“I should call my father, too,” Liv said. “See what he has to say about my mother and . . . Navarone.” He handed her the cell, but she didn’t use it. “I’ll probably get Lorinda, and I just don’t think I have the energy to talk to her.”
“Let’s talk to Patsy and see where we are.”
“Okay.”
September stared at the bulletin board by Wes Pelligree’s desk with Sheila Dempsey and Emmy Decatur’s pictures. She then looked down at the opened file in her hands. The carved DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME was clearly visible on the crime-scene photos of Decatur.
Wes was still making phone calls, amassing information that had to do with Olivia Dugan and the Zuma case. She couldn’t help wishing she were still part of it, though D’Annibal had not been wrong. The Do Unto Others case was big, too. Very big. There was no reason to feel slighted. None at all.
“Let me ask you somethin’,” Wes said to September as he hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. “I can’t stir up anyone named Dr. Frank Navarone. It’s like he’s dead. But there’s a Dr. Frank Navato who does psychological counselin’ out of his home. I thought it was an office, but it’s a rental house on the east side. A separate buildin’, a garage, that the home owners apparently renovated and rent out for some extra income.”
“You think Novato is Dr. Navarone.” She’d been given the basic outline of the scope of Auggie’s investigation, but no serious details.
He nodded. “Suppose, after he lost his license, Navarone decided to just fake it. Change his name and keep on goin’ . Sure, he’s vulnerable to discovery, but maybe his clients even know. Or, don’t care. He’s unorthodox, and there’s apparently enough negligence or disregardin’ of the rules or whatever to yank his license, but he was never convicted of a crime. So, he hangs out his shingle and starts up again. Maybe not with all the accolades, or hospital trappin’s, but the guy’s gotta make a livin’, right?”
“And Navarone is the guy Auggie likes for Zuma and the Trask Martin homicide.”
“Crazy Eight thinks he could also be the serial strangler from Rock Springs about twenty years ago,” he reminded her.
“Don’t call him that. Please, Wes . . . Weasel. I’m mad at him. I don’t want him to be mad back.”
“Chicken.” He grinned.
“Aren’t you a little upset that our cases got switched?”
“Nah, your brother’s gonna crack this one with my superlative help, and I’ll be back on the case with you before you know it.”
September managed a smile. “You think Navarone’s good for the Zuma massacre?”
“I’m leanin’ that way.”
“Where is Auggie?”
He glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty. “Rock Springs.”
Chapter 22
Liv rang the doorbell to the Owens house, shaking a bit inside. They’d wasted valuable time and Navarone had run her off the road since Patsy had neglected to tell them what she knew.
“She could be at a job,” Auggie pointed out.
“Maybe.” Liv pressed the bell again, listening to the chimes.
It took longer than it probably should have; Patsy was apparently in no hurry to answer the door. But then she did, swinging it slowly open. She was in shorts and a tank top and sweat was beaded on her face. Liv felt a wave of sweltering heat hit her from the inside.
“The air conditioner wasn’t much, but it died for good last night,” Patsy said, standing back to allow them inside.
“You don’t seem surprised to see us,” Auggie observed.
Patsy gestured for them to take a seat, but Liv ignored her and jumped right in. “You knew the man in the photo was Frank Navarone. Why did you lie?”
“The mad doctor?” Patsy smiled faintly. “I just didn’t want to relive those days, I guess.”
“You took the picture!” Liv accused her.
The stuffiness inside the house was horrendous. Patsy had the windows open from the kitchen, but there was no breeze. Liv felt practically starved for oxygen and she could feel a trickle of sweat collect between her breasts.
“Please sit down,” Patsy said, taking her original chair from the last time they were there. Auggie complied, and Liv reluctantly followed suit. “This is embarrassing. I just really didn’t want to talk about it. I had a real thing for Frank, but he was in love with Deborah. It was obvious.”
“You had a thing for him?” Liv questioned. “Angela Navarone said you didn’t like him, and not to believe anything you said about him.”
“Unfortunately that’s not true,” Patsy wagged her head slowly from side to side. “I did like him. Too much. Sounds like she’s just trying to protect him.”
“You were friends with the Dugans? Liv’s . . . Olivia’s . . . adoptive parents?” Auggie questioned.
Patsy looked at him, then down at her clasped hands, then over to Liv. “This isn’t going to sound good. I’m sorry. You’re . . . my daughter . . . and I just didn’t want you to think bad of me. I was so overwhelmed when you came here the first time. . . .”
Liv wanted to say so much; her emotions were threatening to spill over into a fulminating fury. Auggie intervened quickly, as if aware of her conflict, “Tell us about Navarone.”
“First, let me say that Deborah Dugan was a lovely person. Really. A very lovely person, and I forced a friendship on her, I guess you’d say. I never told her I was your mother,” Patsy said.
“My birth mother,” Liv corrected her.
She nodded. “Yes. I know. I made her acquaintance because I wanted to know you, and I wanted to know her, and I got kind of caught up in it all. Everett and I were over, and it was all I had. It felt like it was all I had, y’know?”
Liv didn’t trust herself to answer, but Auggie said, “Go on.”
“I took the photographs with Frank’s camera and he wasn’t happy about it at all. Didn’t want his picture taken. But in the end Deborah must’ve got them somehow. I didn’t know she had your birth certificate, too. I don’t know when that happened. She probably got it from the hospital.”
“With the help of Dr. Navarone?” Auggie guessed.
“I guess when she found out . . . that Everett and I were your biological parents . . . that’s when it all sorta fell apart and we stopped being friends.” Patsy’s eyes closed in defeat. “I never really knew what happened. One day we were friends, the next we weren’t. I always kinda thought maybe it was because of Sylvia Parmiter’s murder.”
“Tell us about that,” Auggie said.
“Not much to tell,” she said, shaking her head. “She was one of the strangler’s victims. Up until Sylvia we all thought we were safe. That he was only targeting prostitutes, y’know. From the big city. Rock Springs was just the dumping grounds, out here in the boonies. But then after they found her, it was all so real. One of our own, and I started wondering if maybe the reason the bodies were dumped here was because the killer was familiar with the area. I think we all felt that way, but nobody would admit to it.”
“You started thinking it was Navarone,” Auggie said.
“No . . . no.” She shook her head, but it was almost like she was still trying to convince herself. “But then, Deborah hanged herself, and that was the end. Frank left town. Everett and I were already broken up. Albert found Lorinda and it was just—over.”
“You never thought Frank Navarone was the strangler?” Liv asked quietly.
“How could he be? I just . . .” Patsy rubbed her clasped hands together. “But I always wondered, y’know, if Deborah thought so . . . and maybe that’s why she hanged herself? Because she really did love him, but thought . . . oh, I don’t know.”
That was not what Liv wanted to hear. She needed to believe her mother was murdered. That her death had not been a choice. “From what Angela Navarone said, my mother chose my father over him. Why would she hang herself?”
“You don’t think it was suicide,” Patsy said on a note of discovery.
“I don’t know.” Liv was firm.
A moment passed, then Patsy asked, “Angela Navarone really said she thought I hated Frank? I wonder what he told her that made her think that.”
“Do you have any idea where he is today?” Auggie asked. “Any idea at all?”
“I thought he was at Halo Valley. That’s the last I heard. When I married Barkley, I let all that go. I didn’t really want to think about it anymore, y’know? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything on Sunday.”
Liv got to her feet. She was anxious to get out of this hot, little house. She felt slightly light-headed, and was glad to feel Auggie’s steadying hand on her arm.
“One more thing, I don’t know if it matters. It was just a rumor,” Patsy said at the door.
On the porch Liv closed her eyes to the blinding sun and heard Auggie ask, “What?”
“Deborah told me once that she thought Hague might be Frank’s, not Albert’s. I don’t think either Frank or Albert ever knew for sure. . . .”
“Hello, Detective Rafferty. This is Pauline Kirby from Channel Seven News. I was told you are the person in charge of the murder investigation into the death of Emmy Decatur. Is that correct?”
September held the receiver in her hand and stared across the station at Wes for help, but Wes was on the phone, still searching for Navarone. George was tuned into his computer, as ever, and Gretchen wasn’t around. D’Annibal was in his office, but a hell of a lot of good that
would do her; he was the one who’d sicced Pauline on her in the first place.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“We understand that this homicide has similarities to the murder of Sheila Dempsey earlier this year.”
“That is also correct.”
“Our team is meeting at six o’clock at the site where the second homicide victim, Emmy Decatur, was found. We want to invite you to take this opportunity to soothe the public. Let them know the Laurelton police are doing everything in their power to find this sadistic killer.”
September pictured the newswoman: dark-haired, tense, pushy, brittle, with perfect hair and a perfect smile. If she accepted the invitation, she wondered how she herself would look on video, then immediately thrust that aside. Who cared, really. To hell with it. If D’ Annibal wanted her to be the face for the department, she would. And she would stop complaining.
“I’ll be there,” she said succinctly. Wes had hung up and was already heading out when she ended her call. She would have liked to talk to him, but felt a little like the “uninvited.” George gave her a questioning look, and she answered, “Pauline Kirby.”
He snorted in amusement. “You’ll be the darling of television.”
“Oh, goody.”
Half an hour later Auggie and Olivia Dugan blew into the police station again. They appeared to be joined at the hip. September surreptitiously observed them as they approached. Something was going on there. She just wasn’t sure what. Dugan didn’t look all that happy. She was a little pale, a little remote, and there was a quality about her that seemed to shout that, given the slightest provocation, she was going to run like a rabbit.
“Where’s Weasel?” Auggie demanded.
“Nice to see you too,” September said. “You just missed him. He’s working on finding your Dr. Navarone, the last I heard.”
“I know. What’s he got?”
“I don’t know. Give him a call. He thinks Navarone may be using an assumed name: Novato.”
