Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  I gave him one of those icy glares that’s intended to convey more than words. “Quite a job you’ve taken on here,” I said, surveying the gutted interior. The nasty tone I’d tried for was muted somewhat by grudging respect. Anyone who would tackle a job like that with the confidence it would end up whole again deserved credit.

  “It is quite a job, taken on more by necessity than choice. I’m sorry about the noise. Your dad never minded, and I guess I didn’t think that with you here it might be different. I have to fit this construction stuff into the hours I’m not at work so I don’t have a lot of leeway.”

  “What about Sunday?” I smirked. “That your day for golf?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “You didn’t work Sunday. It was quiet all morning.”

  The puzzled expression gave way to a grin. “It was my weekend with my kids.” He tossed his goggles onto a make-shift workbench. “Cappuccino okay? Strictly decaf, I promise.”

  We passed through the rehab zone and into a kitchen straight out of House Beautiful. A large, open space with hardwood flooring, granite counter tops, gleaming new appliances, and a profusion of sunlight.

  “This is beautiful,” I said, genuinely impressed. “You did it yourself?”

  “Not the finish work. I’m merely the grunt labor and gofer. It cuts costs considerably. It did turn out nicely though, didn’t it?” He filled the cappuccino machine with water, flipped on the switch, then poured milk into a small metal pitcher.

  “Your weekend with the kids,” I said, repeating what he'd told me. “You’re divorced?”

  “Just about” The machine began to gurgle. Tom pressed water through the coffee grounds, then frothed the milk and ladled white foam into the cups. “Lynn and I moved back here because we hated the phoniness and self-indulgent atmosphere of LA. We wanted a good, wholesome place to raise a family.” He offered me a cup and a crooked smile. “Eight months later she ran off with the contractor. A double whammy. I lost both a wife and a contractor. How about you, happily married?”

  I shook my head. “Never married.”

  “Never?” He seemed to find the idea amusing. “You one of those ambitious, hard-nosed career women we read about? Somehow I never pictured you in that role.”

  “Well, that’s me,” I told him. Though in truth, I’d never thought of myself in quite those terms.

  “Relationships, though. I bet you’ve had your share of those.”

  “A few.”

  “You got a boyfriend now?”

  “I guess you could call him that.” I wasn’t so sure Ken would agree.

  Tom sipped his coffee, watching me over the rim of his cup. He rocked back in his chair, started to say something more, then apparently thought better of it.

  “What do you do when you’re not hammering and sawing?” I asked.

  “I’m with The Mountain Journal. ”

  “Must have been quite an adjustment, coming from The LA Time." And a big step down, I thought.

  He shrugged. “All depends on what’s important I guess.”

  We were sitting in an alcove at the end of the kitchen. Sunlight filtered through the pines and cast the room in a soft golden glow. I licked at the foam in my cup and felt the sharp edge of tension that had been with me since last night begin to slacken.

  “I’m sorry I came banging on your door like a banshee,” I said. “I had a rough night”

  “I’ve had a few of those myself. From now on I’ll try to keep the noise down in the morning.”

  “That’s all right. I won’t be staying here much longer.”

  “Which one are you in a hurry to get back to, career or boyfriend?” Tom grinned and I glowered. “Both?”

  At that moment, neither, but that wasn’t the issue.

  “You could stick around awhile," he said. "You know, take some time to smell the daisies.”

  It had been my experience that people who took time to smell the daisies rarely made it out of the pasture. “If I wanted to smell daisies,” I told him, “I could pick up a bunch at the flower stand.”

  Tom grinned. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Red. It’s not the same.”

  <><><>

  Back home, I fixed myself a piece of toast and munched it on my way to the shower. I tossed my sweats into the laundry, which was something I should have done several days earlier, and promised myself I would never again leave the house without make-up, even in a fit of anger. The hot water finished what the aspirin and coffee had begun, and by the time I dried my hair and added a little color to my face, I felt like a new woman. I’d just stepped into my underwear when the phone rang. “Daryl Benson here. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Good. I tried you yesterday, but you were out. I didn’t want to take a chance on missing you again today. Your note said you wanted to see me about the Marrero case.”

  “Right”

  “You know something?”

  “Not exactly.” Not the kind of information he was looking for anyway. “I’m a friend of his wife’s. I'd like to talk to you about the investigation.”

  I anticipated a frosty brush-off, but there was a long silence instead, followed by a heavy sigh. “Sure, why not. I haven’t seen you all grown up anyway. Bet you’re the spiting image of your mother. You want to come by this afternoon, say about one?”

  “That’s fine. See you then.”

  The timing was good; it would give me the morning to track down Carla Newcomb. I finished dressing, made sure Loretta’s water bowl was filled, then grabbed the map and headed over to the east part of town in search of Ponderosa Place. After considerable effort, I’d finally managed to locate the proper coordinates, but because of a large splotch of catsup in the same vicinity, I wasn’t entirely sure of the location.

  Chapter 11

  About half a mile from the house, I realized I’d forgotten the photograph of Jannine I needed for my trip to the mall that afternoon. I slowed, preparing to make a U-tum and head back to retrieve it. A white Lincoln was moving up fast behind me, and a convoy of logging trucks was coming in the other direction so I pulled off to the right, onto a private lane instead. A cloud of dust billowed up around the car, leaving a layer of powdery grunge on the shiny metallic finish. I groaned, then groaned again when I realized that the road was narrow and the shoulder on either side soft. Turning around was going to be no easy matter.

  By the time I had the nose of the car pointed in the right direction and was ready to pull back onto the main drag, I’d worked myself into a low grade sweat. Which is probably why I didn’t see the large white car coming at high speed from my right. I pulled out, then slammed on my brakes. He swerved onto the shoulder at the far side, sending another plume of dust my way, and then sped on.

  Shaken, I inched onto the blacktop and crept back to the house, where I gave serious thought to staying for the remainder of the day. But my curiosity about Carla Newcomb was too great. I rechecked the map and started out again.

  I would have had trouble finding Ponderosa even if the map hadn’t been spotted with catsup. It was one of those narrow, meandering streets that jogs, skips a few blocks, and then winds off in a different direction entirely. Nevertheless, with persistence and a bit of help from an elderly gentleman who seemed delighted to have a captive audience, I finally located the house.

  It was a faded blue clapboard, small and shabby. One of many in a run-down neighborhood near the sawmill. The steps were sagging, the lawn a thick brown thatch, the flower beds overgrown with weeds. I doubted Carla had ten dollars to spare, much less ten thousand.

  She may not have been the source of Eddie’s buy-out money, but I was willing to bet there was still plenty she could tell me. I parked across the street and waited for inspiration. When none came, I did what I usually do in such situations — I forged ahead anyway.

  Pots of flowers, all of them plastic and rather gaudy, dotted the front porch. I stepped around a perky pink geranium and
knocked. The woman who answered had a head full of curlers and a tense, impatient manner. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t need any.”

  “I’m looking for Carla Newcomb. Is that you?”

  She eyed me suspiciously, took a long drag on her cigarette and asked, “What of it?”

  Lust can turn a man’s head, and a woman’s, too I’ve been told, but I had a hard time imagining Eddie going weak in the knees over this woman. She did have a figure, or rather a bosom, that much was obvious from the way the thin cotton robe clung to her body. But her hair was a straw-like yellow, growing in dark at the roots, her brows plucked to a thin, harsh line, and her mouth tight. She had the same worn-out look as the neighborhood.

  “I’d like to talk to you about Eddie Marrero,” I said, watching closely to see how his name affected her. It was a technique I used questioning witnesses, especially when I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.

  But Carla only stared at me blankly. “Who’s he?” she asked after a moment

  "The high school teacher who was murdered last weekend.”

  Recognition flashed on her face. “Right. I didn’t recognize the name at first.”

  It was a good act. “When did you last talk to him?” I asked, speaking in my attorney voice.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever talked to him.”

  “I understood you were a friend of his.”

  “Me?” She laughed, a harsh, dry laugh that pierced the morning stillness. “I don’t know where you got that. I didn’t know the man from Adam.”

  Now it was my turn to stare blankly.

  “Even the name wouldn’t mean nothing to me except that Cheryl babysat for him sometimes.”

  “Cheryl?”

  “My daughter. Sassy smart-ass won’t lift a finger around the house, but she’ll go running off to baby-sit every chance she gets.”

  Cheryl Newcomb — C.N., initials the same as her mother’s. A teenager who sat for the Marreros. I felt silly, to say the least.

  “She’s at school if you want to talk to her. You’ll have better luck finding her there than here. Way she sees it, home’s just a place to drop off your laundry.”

  In Cheryl’s case, I thought, the sentiment might not be a bad one. “Sorry to have bothered you,” I said.

  The front door slammed shut before I made it halfway across the rickety porch.

  My appointment with Benson wasn’t for another hour and a half. Not enough time to drive over to Stone Mountain Mall, but too long to sit and twiddle my thumbs. I decided to drop by the school and see if I couldn’t track down Jack Peterson and maybe a couple of other teachers whose names Jannine had given me. I started the engine and was pulling away from the curb when I caught a flash of white in the rearview mirror, a late model American car pulling slowly through the intersection behind me.

  Goosebumps rose along the back of my neck. I had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling I was being followed. Either that, or I’d recently become a magnet for large white cars. I waited another minute, and when it didn’t reappear, I started off, chiding myself for being paranoid. I watched the rearview mirror all the way to school, however.

  Peterson was out, but I managed to talk to two of the other three names on my list. Chuck Wilcox, history teacher and student council advisor, was a gaunt, spectacled young man whose sober earnestness probably earned him the respect of his colleagues, and the ridicule of his students. Don Ramirez taught Spanish and had a face as smooth as silk. Both men knew Eddie; neither was able tell me anything helpful.

  The lunch bell rang just as I was leaving the main building, and I scooted over to the corner of the quad to avoid being mowed down by adolescent exuberance. Standing there under the gnarled old oak Jannine and I had used as a meeting place years ago, I was caught in a moment of deja vu. I knew what it was to be fifteen, angry at the world, racked with longings you couldn’t understand and thoughts that scared you silly.

  On an impulse, I stopped two girls who were sauntering down the path and asked if they knew Cheryl Newcomb.

  They giggled. “We know who she is,” said the taller one, with the Far-rah Fawcett hairdo, “but we’re not, like, friends or anything.”

  The dark-haired girl nodded.

  “Can you point her out to me?” I asked.

  “She’s absent.”

  “Absent?”

  “Like, you know, not at school.” They looked at me as though I were from another planet. “She’s been out all week.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. We’re in dumbbell math together.”

  “She’s sick?”

  Farrah gave me a look which shot daggers. “How should I know. Like I said, we’re not friends or anything.”

  “Who does she hang around with?” I asked.

  “No one. That’s part of her problem, right El?” The dark-haired girl nodded. “She’s like a total wannabe, you know.”

  I didn’t “Wannabe what?”

  “A somebody.” Farrah snapped her gum. “Is she in trouble or something?”

  I shook my head. At least not yet. It might be a different story once her mother found out she wasn’t in school. “You sure she’s absent?”

  “Yo, Madeline.” Farrah hailed the girl who’d been working in the main office yesterday when I stopped by to see Nancy. “This here lady’s looking for Cheryl Newcomb.”

  “She’s absent,” Madeline said. “Flu.”

  Farrah flung her head with I-told-you-so nonchalance, and strutted off. El was close on her heels.

  “You’re Mrs. Wallace’s friend,” Madeline said. “I recognize you from yesterday.”

  I nodded. “How well do you know Cheryl?”

  “Hardly at all. I only know she’s sick ’cause I had to take her place in Mr. Peterson’s office the last couple of days. She always acts like working in his office is a such a big deal, but if you ask me, attendance is a lot better. I can’t wait to get back.”

  As I climbed into the car, I struggled with the muddle I’d landed myself in. I didn’t know Cheryl, and I certainly didn’t want to look like a busybody. On the other hand, the girl was playing fast and loose with the rules, which is something I approve of only when I do it myself. There was also the matter of that notation in Eddie’s calendar. The more I’d thought about it, the less sense it made. By the time I pulled up in front of City Hall, I’d made up my mind to drop back by the Newcomb house that afternoon and speak to Cheryl. After that, I’d decide what, if anything, to tell her mother about cutting school.

  I still had a few minutes before my appointment with Benson, so I found a pay phone in the lobby and called Sara Stewart at our office. I don’t know whether I was disappointed or relieved when she couldn’t come to the phone. There’s an element of truth to that old saying about ignorance and bliss. If the firm was no longer giving out raises and bonuses, maybe I was better off not knowing. Then I took a deep breath and asked to be transferred to Ken’s line. Our conversation Monday evening had left a sour taste in my mouth. We hadn’t been going out long enough to have had any real fights, but Monday felt awfully close. And equally unsettling. I didn’t want to leave it that way.

  Ken, it turned out, had flown to D.C. for a last minute settlement conference.

  “He tried to reach you yesterday,” his secretary said, turning the announcement into something of a reprimand.

  “I was away most of the day.”

  “I know,” she snipped. “He left a message though, in case you called in. He said he hoped you’d ‘reconsider about the weekend.’” She said this last part rather stiffly. “I presume you know what that means.”

  I felt a smile beginning. He wanted me home for the weekend. Apparently I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable about the tone of our last conversation.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What,” she said airily, “shall I tell Mr. Levitt?”

  “Why don’t you give me his number in D.C., and I’ll tell him myself
.”

  “You won’t be able to reach him. He’s going to be in meetings from early morning till late at night.”

  I couldn’t tell if this was Ken’s line or merely another example of his secretary’s resourcefulness, and I didn’t have the time to find out. “When’s he coming back?” I asked.

  “Friday night.” She paused. “Shall I tell him you’ve reconsidered?”

  “Tell him,” I replied, “that I’ll talk with him when he returns.” It sounded good, but I don’t play hardball very well. I dialed again, his home this time, and left a message on his machine. I wouldn’t be able to get back by the weekend, but I’d take a rain check. I considered adding something a bit more personal, but when I tried to think what, I came up blank. It was probably just as well, since there was a good chance I’d end up unintentionally offending him. Ken is funny like that.

  To my surprise, Daryl Benson was available and waiting for me when I made it upstairs. Helga ushered me into his office with a thin-lipped scowl, then left abruptly, leaving the door slightly ajar. Benson rose from behind his desk to greet me.

  “Goodness, how time flies,” he said, giving my hand a hearty shake. I’d seen him hesitate for just a fraction, not knowing whether to offer a hug or a hand. I was glad he’d chosen the latter. Still, seeing him brought back a flood of memories. Benson had been a part of the happy period of my childhood. Those years before my mother’s death, when the house was filled with conversation and laughter and my father’s whistling; with comforting kitchen smells and the bustle of lives being lived.

  “Just look at you,” he bellowed, “all grown up. And so lovely, too. You’re the image of your mother.”

  He offered me a seat, then perched on the edge of his desk facing me. He’d put on weight over the years, and his head was almost completely bald. He looked more like a jowly Kojak than the lighthearted, loose-limbed man I remembered.

  “I can see why your dad was so proud of you,” he said after a moment.

  “He never acted like he was. In fact, most of the time he acted as though I were invisible.”

  Benson raised an eyebrow at my tone, then dropped his gaze to study his hands. They were thick and gnarled, but neatly manicured like the rest of him.