When we got upstairs, I put the bag with Kalif's equipment down on the double bed. I pulled the curtains closed so we could change into ourselves, but not before admiring the balcony view from the sliding glass door. It was perfectly focused on the skyline of San Jose, the shiny buildings rising together, like blocks on a bar graph.
My newlywed persona, I was sure, would have come up with a more romantic metaphor. But there was no use stabbing at romance now. Kalif was too worried about my mental state, and more importantly, we had work to do.
Kalif set up his computer on the end of the dresser, while I laid out the papers again, to consider the cases with a fresh mind.
The reports were mostly unsolved murders, though in a few cases someone had been convicted for the killing—a brother-in-law in one, a downstairs neighbor in another. But in every case I found hints that shifters were involved. Some bystander swore they saw the killer somewhere else that night. The murderer inexplicably left clothes behind at the scene. Nothing the cops couldn't explain away, but enough that I could recognize the signs.
None of the other reports had clues that it was Mom or Dad who committed the murders. I studied the picture of Mom. It was possible for Aida and Mel to have guessed what Mom looked like when she was younger, especially since the picture made her look so much like me.
I was reading through the details of the final murder—the one Mel claimed to have seen. The victim was a white-collar guy, the CEO of Graphasoft. He had an established cocaine addiction, and the murder looked like a back-alley shooting. But it turned out after the fact that he'd been inflating his company stock to cut and run, which wasn't illegal, but was the kind of thing that would ruffle the feathers of people around him who might want the business to stay afloat.
In short, it looked like exactly the sort of job my parents would take, if they were inclined to kill people.
I flipped through the papers again. What if my parents did do it? What if Kalif and I were working to free murderers instead of innocents?
I shook my head. They were still my parents, and they clearly weren't receiving anything like a fair trial. They'd been snatched in the night. That wasn't the work of justice. This had to be a setup.
Combing over the report, I found it: a tiny footnote, a piece of information the police had gleaned from talking to the victim's wife.
She'd been having an affair, the report said. And she'd told her lover exactly where her husband would be and when, so she could convince him it was safe to meet up.
Then her husband wound up dead. And she never saw her lover again.
My stomach turned, and Kalif's words repeated in my head. He's seducing someone, okay? It's his preferred method. If Mel had a calling card, this was it.
I glanced over at Kalif. He leaned intently over his computer, the screen casting white light over his face. I couldn't falsely accuse his father of murder. I had to be sure. But if it had been Mel who killed this guy, I didn't know how I'd ever know for certain.
And then I looked down at the date.
"Kalif," I said. "Do you have that mission file your parents deleted from the server?" He'd been so upset about the lost data, but we'd never pieced together why his parents would remove that file, out of all the mission reports my parents had logged.
"Yeah." He clicked on something, and then tilted his screen in my direction. "It's right here."
I glanced back at the report on the CEO's murder. "The date. It was January seventh?"
He squinted at the screen. "Yeah. What of it?"
I got up from the bed, newspaper clipping in hand, and stood behind his chair to see the date for myself.
The murder took place the same night as the deleted mission.
I handed Kalif the paper. "They erased my parents' alibi."
We both stared at the screen. I leaned over, wrapping my arms around Kalif's shoulders. The muscles in his back stretched tight. "Your parents thought they'd be home that night," I said. "But my parents went out without telling them first and yours came home and discovered the people they'd framed had to be in two places at once."
Kalif leaned his head back against me, and let out a long, slow breath. I expected him to be angry, but his voice sounded resigned. "Dad thinks we're descended from assassins. Maybe it's not that far a stretch to become one."
I squeezed him tighter.
He looked at the report again. "Do you really think this was him?"
"We need to find proof," I said. If we could gather enough evidence, we might be able to talk my parents out.
Eighteen
A few hours later, I stood outside a Los Altos mansion, smart phone in hand. The police report listed this as the residence of Sylvia Stoddard, widow of CEO Will Stoddard—the CEO who was shot to death in the alley following a drug deal.
I'd dressed as a woman in her mid-forties for this job; a woman knocking on the door unexpectedly would draw a lot less suspicion than a man. I'd bought these clothes on the way over, but I'd had to hike ten blocks through the winding, tree-lined streets, because busses didn't travel through neighborhoods this rich. The last three streets hadn't even had sidewalks. I guessed the rich didn't walk, either. Or maybe they walked on their estates; I couldn't even see most of the houses from the road.
If I'd realized how long a walk this would be, I might have just called Sylvia on the phone. But talking in person would give me a chance to read her body language, to know if there were things she wasn't sharing, and also to disarm her a bit. People were accustomed to scam phone calls. Going in person gave me the chance to seem nice and harmless. And, to her, that's exactly what I was.
I double-checked the address on the mailbox with the one on my phone, and then tucked the phone into the pocket of my pants suit. The path to the door wound through several weeping willows, to a set of tall steps leading up to a pair of oak double doors.
Here went nothing.
I climbed the steps up to the door and rang the doorbell. I couldn't hear whether or not it rang through the door, but a moment later, a voice spoke to me through the intercom above the doorbell. The voice sounded like a woman in her mid-fifties, so this could very well be Sylvia.
"Hello?"
"I'm here to talk to Sylvia Stoddard," I said. "I'm a private investigator looking into her husband's death."
There was a pause. "I already have an investigator."
I nodded. If she'd hired one, she must not have been satisfied with the police work. "Of course. But I was hired by friends on the board of directors of your husband's company. They were concerned that the police hadn't done enough."
"Don hired you, then."
I remembered a Donald from the list of members of the board, but I couldn't remember his last name. It was a gamble, but I had to take the chance. "Yes."
Another pause. "And I suppose you'll want to come in to speak with me."
I smiled. "That would be very helpful, ma'am."
A moment later, the door swung open. I recognized Sylvia Stoddard from a photo I'd seen online of her and her late husband at a charity banquet. In that photo, her hair had been blonde, but she'd dyed it darker now, and I could see flecks of gray at the roots.
"Hello," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm Anne Temple. Pleased to meet you."
Sylvia shook my hand. Her grip was light, and she looked me up and down, appraising me. She didn't look at all pleased to meet me. "So you've come to interrogate me about my late husband's death, hmm?"
"No," I said quickly. "I just wanted to hear your side of things. That's all."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Well, you may as well come in." She led me through her entryway and into what I supposed one would call a living room, if it hadn't looked so very un-lived in. The white furniture was immaculate; as I walked in, my shoes left footprints in the orderly vacuum lines on the carpet.
Did CEOs of tech companies make this much? It probably depended on their stock options, but I found it more likely that one or the other of them came from mon
ey, as well.
Sylvia motioned me to a loveseat, and then sat down herself, resting her elbows on the wooden arms of her chair. "I suppose," she said, "that you're here to ask me about Brian."
I nodded. According to the police report, Brian was the name of her lover. "The police didn't seem to think that he was involved. But it seems suspicious that—"
"You're damned right it's suspicious," Sylvia said. "I've had a man looking for him, but he's turned up nothing. How does a man just disappear?"
I swallowed. I knew exactly how. And if her investigator didn't, he wasn't going to turn up a thing. "He's found nothing?"
Sylvia nodded. "I suppose I know how to pick them. William was proof of that."
I nodded. All the reports, except the medical reports from the coroner, had referred to her husband as Will. I wondered if she'd always called him by his full name, or if this was something that she did to give herself distance after his death.
"And your husband," I said. "Did he know about the affair?"
Sylvia waved a hand dismissively. "I'm sure he suspected."
There was another explanation for why the man might have disappeared. If her husband had discovered the affair immediately before his death, he might have done something about it. The death might even be tied up in that struggle—which would make it much less likely that Mel had been involved.
"Do you think," I said, "that your husband might have contacted Brian, before he died?"
Sylvia actually looked amused about the idea. "I don't know why he would have," she said. "He never contacted any of the others."
My cheeks reddened, and I suppressed them so she wouldn't notice. A seasoned private investigator wouldn't blush at infidelity, would she? But I suddenly became very aware that I had invaded the home of a much older woman to ask her about the intimate details of her love life. I couldn't believe that Mel preferred to work that way. I was absolutely certain that this conversation would not have been easier if Sylvia had her clothes off.
I lightened my cheeks even more.
"So you had . . . many affairs?"
Sylvia gave me a wry smile. "Don't look so scandalized. My husband and I had an arrangement."
I blinked. They both knew, and didn't care? That was even more screwed up than Aida and Mel. "Do you mind . . . may I ask . . ."
Sylvia laughed. "You want to know why we were still married?"
I nodded.
"Because divorce is for the young and the foolish," she said. "It's financial suicide. William and I had been together so long that trying to disentangle our finances would have left us both with a mess to clean up, just a few years before we wanted to retire. It was obviously in our best interest to stay together."
That made sense. It was basically the same situation that Aida and Kalif were in. It was clearly in their best interest to keep their family and business together—even if they were uncomfortable with Mel's methods. "But that couldn't have been easy, could it? Staying married to someone you didn't love?"
Sylvia leaned toward me. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were accusing me of wanting to kill William."
I froze. That did sound like where I was going. And it was plausible, wasn't it? I'd been assuming that the people who hired Mel would have been his business associates, but infidelity was a powerful motivator for murder, especially in a situation where divorce wasn't a viable option.
But sitting in a widow's parlor and accusing her of murder? Not the smartest plan, especially since I was working alone.
Sylvia sighed. "Not that it's any of your business, but I did love William. I loved him the day he died, and I love him still. I never would have wished this on him. Never. I told him drugs were a young man's folly. I begged him to get professional treatment. It wasn't as if we couldn't afford it. But he was sure going to a facility would be the end of his career." She huffed. "His death was the end of it anyway, just like I always knew it would be."
I sat back in my chair. She sounded sincere. My parents might have been able to pick up on little signs better than I could, but for my part, I believed her.
Sylvia sighed. "If you find Brian, I'll be impressed. You've seen the police report, yes? Don acquired that for me with his own connections, and I gave a copy to my personal investigator."
"Your investigator," I said. "Would he know more?"
She shrugged. "Perhaps. You can ask him when he arrives."
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. "Are you expecting him?"
Sylvia looked surprised. "Didn't I say that? He asked me to inform him whenever I receive inquiries about my husband's case. He wants to make sure that he has all the information. I sent him a text message while we were at the door, and he said he'd come right over."
I narrowed my eyes. "And he makes house calls? On a moment's notice?"
Sylvia smiled. "He's very attentive. Should be, for what I'm paying him."
My pulse quickened, and it was all I could do not to claw at the upholstery. This could just be an investigator who was so well paid that he jumped at the chance to feel useful.
But if Aida and Mel were trying to pin their murders on my parents, it only made sense to keep a persona in the picture, to watch their backs. It was a perfect con. Sleep with a woman to get the details of her husband's habits, then turn around and present yourself as her investigator, to be sure she doesn't get any closer to the truth, and get on her payroll on the side. Very clever. Also, completely disgusting.
Sylvia's hall clock chimed on the hour. I smiled, and looked at the exits of the room. There was only the door we'd come through, and the bay windows, covered in sheers. I wasn't going to climb out one of those right in front of her.
But I had to get out of here. Now.
"How long will he be?" I asked.
Sylvia looked down at her watch. "Only a few more minutes, I should think."
I gave her what I hoped was an easy smile. "Do you mind if I use your bathroom while we wait?" Inwardly, I cringed. That excuse was so overused that it bordered on suspicious. But Sylvia just smiled graciously, and stood. "This way."
Sylvia's house was enormous, but it wasn't exactly a fortress; it wasn't hard to pop the screen out of her bathroom window once I'd opened it from the inside. I moved across her yard, keeping bushes and lawn swings between me and the house. When I reached the stone wall at the back of her property, I used her stone birdbath as a step, and hoisted myself up onto it.
I crouched on top of the wall, surveying the neighbors' yards. And on the far side of the backyard neighbor's swimming pool, I found what I was looking for—a pair of children's swimsuits, laid out to dry in the sun.
I sat down on the wall and jumped down, my legs aching even more from this impact than from the last. I watched the house as I approached the clothes, but none of the blinds stirred.
Beyond the swimsuits, in the side yard, I saw a child's bicycle, lying on its side with a pedal jammed into the dirt. I picked up the larger of the two swimsuits—a girl's Little Mermaid one piece—and moved to the bicycle, picking it up out of the dirt as well.
At times like this, I wished I could shift invisible. Instead, I stepped behind a large lilac bush and stripped down, leaving my business suit and shoes jammed inside the bush, and stepping into the swimsuit. I paid particular attention to my curves, reducing them, softening my frame into a chubby little girl with a round belly and soft legs. I moved from shrub to shrub, trying to stay out of view of the house until I was safely out of the side gate and out to the street. And then I hopped on the bike and pedaled furiously down the street.
The block that Sylvia lived on was so large that I was afraid her investigator would be gone by the time I rode by her house.
But there, parked on the street, was Aida and Mel's black SUV. If they'd had more time, they might have brought a vehicle I wouldn't recognize. But this was a quick house call. To get here this fast, they couldn't have come from San Jose. Whichever of them had been closest must have bee-lined it her
e.
They'd prioritized this over whatever else they were doing.
That meant they knew it was me.
My palms sweated against the rubber handlebar grips. I continued to ride around the block in my stolen swimsuit. I'd clearly made my persona a little bigger than the girl who owned it, because the shoulder straps were starting to cut into my skin. When I completed my circle around the block, I rode just past the house where I'd taken the bike, and then took my shrub-hidden path back into the side yard. I listened, carefully, but heard nothing, so I returned the bike, and then stepped back behind the lilac bush to change back into my clothes and a fresh new persona for the walk home.
I'd have to wear the same business suit, though. What if Mel or Aida came looking for me? What if Sylvia identified my outfit? That was the information they'd try to get out of her. That's what they'd be looking for.
I needed something to distract them. I pulled the smart phone from my pocket, and took note again of Sylvia's address. Then I dialed 911.
An operator answered. "What is your emergency?"
"I'm calling to report a domestic dispute," I said. "I hate to be that neighbor, but her boyfriend is threatening her, and I'm worried."
I smiled as the operator took Sylvia's address. Aida and Mel would be able to slide out of this, but it would distract them for a bit.
It would also send a message. If they thought they were going to catch me that easily, they'd totally underestimated who they were dealing with.
When I got back to the hotel, Kalif was still working on the trace.
"Bad news," I said. "That lover was definitely your father. Your parents are keeping tabs on the widow, and they came after me."
Kalif looked up at me in alarm. "You're okay?"
"Yeah," I said. "I called the police on them, to keep them busy."
Kalif rubbed his forehead. "I thought knowing they were involved was good news."
I shook my head. "No. Finding out your parents are murderers is never good news."
Kalif nodded. "Touché."
I walked over and rubbed his shoulders. "You can't be okay with this," I said. "So don't even pretend."
[A Thousand Faces 01.0] A Thousand Faces Page 19
