“Or he’ll have us killed,” I added.
“Those are the chances you take,” she said, giving me a hard stare. I wasn’t so sure she liked me anymore.
That pretty much ended the conversation. Sabrina and Terri said a few more inconsequential things to each other, then said their goodbyes.
The meeting was finished and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Once we made it outside the gates and were at our car, I took a deep breath. The fresh air never felt so good.
“How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you survive in there so long?”
“You tell yourself that you’re going to survive and you keep picturing your life when you get out.”
“You pictured yourself as a famous author?”
She laughed. “I pictured myself free. That was the best I could do.”
We just stood there next to the car and stared back at the prison. I hadn’t thought it looked so bad when we arrived. Now it looked like the Gates of Hell. I could only imagine what Sabrina was thinking, but I wasn’t going to ask. Finally she came back to earth.
“We’re already in Pennsylvania,” she said. “Should we visit John Wheeler?”
“Sure, I’ll get my torture kit.”
She laughed again, and then said, “You know, Terri wasn’t far off track saying we should threaten Wheeler.”
I just looked at her in surprise.
“I don’t mean we should really threaten him, but I think we should hold back information. As Terri said, make him think we know more than we do. All we can do is check out his reaction.”
*****
Wheeler lived in a swanky community on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Unlike the McMansions that have popped up in so many cities in recent years, these were old mansions birthed of old money. Did Wheeler come from old money? Everything we had read indicated no, which meant he probably bought his. These were pretty nice places. We were probably talking a few million dollars. Had he earned that much in congress? Was there another source of income? Lots of questions. A little short on answers.
Finding Wheeler’s house wasn’t hard at all. It turns out that former senators become—for the most part, anyway—normal people when they leave office. They drive their own cars, take out their own garbage, and mow their own lawns. That is, unless you are a rich former senator. Wheeler probably hadn’t done any of those things in decades. He probably had a driver, a butler, and a gardener. He did, however, answer his own door.
We hadn’t really rehearsed what we were going to say, mainly because we didn’t know how to approach it. Was Wheeler a good guy or a bad guy? Or maybe he was just as clueless as we were. So when he answered the door, we had to wing it.
He was an old codger. He was in his early eighties, short and stocky, with an enormous head covered in an even more enormous amount of white hair. His eyebrows were also white and bushy—he probably had to comb them every day. He looked to be in good shape, but our opinion was probably influenced by the white tennis shorts, white tennis shirt, and white sneakers. He was holding a tennis racket—not white. If he had been taller, he could have passed for the abominable snowman.
He was not unpleasant, but seemed rushed, as if we had caught him on his way somewhere. Tennis, maybe?
“May I help you?”
Sabrina started it out and I could immediately see where she was going: begin with the truth and mix it up from there.
“Senator Wheeler, my name is Sabrina Spencer, and this is Del Honeycutt. I was wondering if you could spare us a few minutes to help us solve a mystery?”
“Sabrina Spencer. Where do I know that name?”
“I’m a mystery author.”
“Of course, of course. You’re the one who was all over the news a while back.”
Sabrina squirmed. “Yes sir, that’s me. Do you have just a couple of minutes for us?”
Wheeler looked at his watch, then toward the back of the house, as if he could see through the walls to the tennis court that was probably on the grounds of his estate.
“Sure, why not?” He motioned for us to follow him into the house and down a hallway into a large living room. For a mansion, it had a comfortable feel to it. It was lived in. It wasn’t a house that he visited on occasion. The walls were lined with small pieces of art interspersed with pictures of Wheeler with presidents, foreign leaders, and movie stars. It seemed he had enjoyed his forty years in congress.
“Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
We sat down on a comfortable white couch.
“No thank you,” said Sabrina. “We really don’t want to take up your time, but we have a mystery that needs solving and you might be able to help us solve it.”
“Okay. I’m not sure how, but I’ll give it a try.”
I was liking the guy. For a politician, he seemed almost human.
“Does the name Daisy Leduc mean anything to you?”
“Like the Disney character?”
“No, Leduc.”
“Okay, a French Disney character.” He let out a booming laugh. He had obviously tickled his own funny bone. I had to admit, it was pretty good. I was liking him even more.
“Sorry,” he said. “I do that sometimes—laugh at my own jokes. Sometimes I’m the only one who laughs at them.” He got serious. “But to answer your question, should I know the name?”
“We don’t know,” answered Sabrina. “Daisy was murdered about a week ago. She seems to have had some information about you.”
He cocked his head. “What kind of information?”
“That, we don’t know,” I said. “But it was something important to her—probably one of the only things important to her.”
“I don’t know her.”
Wheeler didn’t seem agitated in any way. He seemed to me to be genuinely confused.
“Daisy spent twenty years in prison here in Pennsylvania,” said Sabrina.
There it was. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there. A tic. A fluttering of his left eye.
He nonchalantly looked at his watch.
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you and I’m about to start a tennis match.” He stood up, so we followed. “But if I remember anything that might help, I’ll be sure to contact you.”
He walked us to the door and ushered us out, closing the door behind us.
On the off-chance that there was surveillance equipment, we waited until we were in the car before talking. “We hit a nerve,” I said.
“We did. Too bad. I was beginning to like him.”
“So was I. It was when you mentioned the prison,” I said.
“I agree. He was rattled by that comment. He’s definitely hiding something. We have to find out what Daisy’s previous name was. Maybe that will clue us in.”
We had made our return flight for early evening, since we didn’t know how long our visit with Terri was going to take, so we still had plenty of time to make it to the airport in Pittsburgh, which we did without once being shot at. Our flight home was pretty uneventful and we were back in Boston by 10:00.
*****
There are about a thousand different ways online to find someone and everything about them. But what we didn’t know was that there are just as many ways for people to hide their information. It turns out that people can change their names legally and simply. You can apply for a name change, which is usually granted. Once you have a new name, you can apply for a driver’s license using that new name. Once you have the driver’s license, you apply for a new social security number. At that point, your new identity is complete. The secret is to move far away from your old life and start fresh.
We found all kinds of information about Daisy as Daisy Leduc—marriage, court reports, Ronnie’s name … you name it—but nothing about Daisy before she got married. Nothing at all. It was like she had never existed as a young person.
But while we were there, we read up on the articles about her trial. Terri was right. She never once used the battered wife
defense and never admitted her guilt. She had handcuffed her lawyer. He had nothing to go on. All she would say was that she didn’t kill her husband and had no idea who did. Her attorney did the best he could, but he must have known he was fighting a losing battle. Daisy was sentenced to forty-five years in the state prison. Terri had told Sabrina that they had let Daisy out early simply due to overcrowding, mixed with Daisy’s good behavior.
There didn’t seem to be anyone we could ask. Ronnie had said that her father’s parents had died, and when we put in Daisy’s husband’s name, Daisy, Ronnie, and the parents were the only names that popped up. No apparent siblings.
We had hit a dead end.
Chapter 12
The next morning started out with a bang … literally.
We tried to sleep in, but by nature we were both early risers and were up by 6:00. We showered together, but after I got out, Sabrina stayed in to finish the hair-washing job that I had started on her before becoming totally distracted.
While I waited for her so we could make our usual Dunkin Donuts run, I checked my email. It was all boring stuff. I switched to the CNN page and started laughing. Sabrina came out of the bathroom at that moment with her wet hair wrapped in a towel.
“What’s so funny?”
“You have a new name.”
“Oh?”
“All of those pictures of you taking down the guy in the hotel that appeared on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and everyplace else, have finally made their way to CNN. There are also pictures of you standing beside our bullet-riddled car in Texas. You are now being referred to as ‘The author and adventuress Sabrina Spencer.’ You are now in the same category as Amelia Earhart.”
“Wonderful,” she said without enthusiasm. “I hope I don’t end the same way she did. Do you have a name in there?” she asked.
“Yup. The same name I’ve always had around you. ‘And friend.’”
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m good with it.”
It took her about half an hour to dry her hair, and the result was spectacular as usual. Then we headed out for our coffees. The closest Dunkin Donuts was within walking distance, so after all the flights we had taken, we soaked up the spring warmth as we walked. We ordered our usual—a hot coffee for her and an iced coffee for me. For either of us, it was the only way we could drink it. Sabrina hated iced coffee and I hated hot coffee. We did, however, share a love of Boston cream donuts, so we splurged.
By the time we got home, the donuts were gone and we had sufficiently cleaned the gunk from our fingers. I unlocked the front door and we began our climb to the third floor. When we reached the second-story landing in front of Seymour’s apartment, a man stepped out of a shadow and pointed a pistol at us. We stopped dead in our tracks.
“You shouldn’t have gone to see Senator Wheeler.”
“What does he have to do with all this?” Sabrina asked.
“You’ll never know.” He raised his gun.
Suddenly a tremendous explosion rocked the house and bits of the crook’s blood and bone and skin splattered all over me. Sabrina and I fell to the floor in fear.
My ears were ringing loudly, but I somehow heard Mo’s door open below and felt her steps as she raced up the stairs. I tried to help Sabrina up, but was having trouble getting myself up to standing. Mo helped us both up.
I looked at Sabrina, blood covering her from head to foot.
“You okay? You hurt?”
“I’m fine. It’s not my blood.” And then she pointed. Our assailant was sprawled out on the stairs leading to my apartment. His chest was blown to pieces. It looked like raw hamburger. Blood and little pieces of his skin and clothes covered the walls and the floor. Smoke hung heavily in the air.
“Someone’s going to have to clean that up.”
We followed the sound of the voice. Seymour was standing in his doorway with a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. Smoke was coming out of both barrels.
“Holy shit!” I said.
“Saw him through my peephole and called the police. Then you came up the stairs. Knew you didn’t stand a chance. While he was talking, I opened my door a crack. The rest is history.”
“Wow, thanks, Seymour,” I said. “I thought I was going to wet my pants.”
“You did.”
I looked down. “Crap.”
“That’s okay,” said Sabrina. “So did I.”
“You guys aren’t hurt though, right?” asked Mo.
“I think we’re okay,” said Sabrina.
“I’ll go wait for the police.”
When she was gone I asked Seymour, “Do you always have a loaded shotgun within reach?”
“Open my door sometime without warning me and you’ll see.”
Weird. Seymour had just killed a man but didn’t seem all that concerned. Was there a secret history to Seymour that I didn’t know about?
The police poured through the front door that Mo held open for them and they clomped up the stairs. Seymour had set the shotgun off to the side so he wouldn’t be confused with the bad guy. They started some basic questions after taking in the scene. One of the younger cops had to go outside to throw up. They were biding their time waiting for the homicide detective to show up. When he did, it was none other than Detective Marsh, who had been in charge of the case of Sabrina’s murdered half-sister Izzy.
He took one look at us.
“You guys again? I thought this address sounded familiar.”
All I could think of were the upcoming news reports of “Author and Adventuress Sabrina Spencer … and friend….”
“Just tell me that it has nothing to do with the previous case. That one’s done, right?”
“It is,” I answered, trying to stay in the shadows so he couldn’t see the little wet spot on my pants. It was probably only an inch wide, but in my head I imagined the worst. In fact, he probably saw it, but was too polite to mention it. After all, how many times had he seen that before?
“You want to tell me the story?”
*****
It took hours. While Marsh was talking to Seymour, Sabrina and I were allowed to go up to shower and change. The whole thing was tiring—and gross with all the blood—but we survived. I wasn’t so sure about Seymour. He was not in trouble in any way. He was protecting us—in his home and ours—pure and simple, and the shotgun was legal. No charges would be filed. However, spending that many hours having to talk to people was a fate worse than death for him. I knew that he was going to blame me and probably not talk to me for a while.
It took almost two hours for them to cover the body, and for much of that time we were talking to Marsh on the stairs before our showers. Finally he moved us up to my apartment, where we made him some coffee and Sabrina put out some cheese and crackers. A regular party. Marsh ate them all himself.
We gave him the full story. It took a while for him to believe it was the full story though, because the last time we dealt with him we had held some things back. Unfortunately, the full story still wasn’t very full. Our answers to most of his questions were, “We don’t know.”
When he finally left and his crew had removed the body and cleared the scene, I called a company that specialized in cleaning up messes to come that day and work on all the blood on the stairs. After staring at the scene for hours, I was pretty sure that it was going to be a long time before I’d eat pizza, hamburger, or spaghetti again.
When we were finally alone, I asked Sabrina, “So where does this leave us?”
“Wheeler was lying to us. He’s involved in this somehow.”
“Too bad. I liked the guy.”
“So did I. I think we need to go back and see him.”
“Yeah, because eventually they will run out of people they can send to kill us. But before we go see him,” I said, “I was thinking that we should do something else first.”
Sabrina looked at me expectantly.
“If Daisy graduated from Harvard, she is most likely in a yearbook.
We can estimate her graduation year based on her age. I think we should look through the yearbooks and see if we can find out what Daisy’s real name was. That would give us a little more ammo when we talk to Wheeler.”
I went online and found out that they were available in the Harvard library.
“Let’s do it,” said Sabrina. “But let’s watch our backs.”
Chapter 13
We were tired and spent the rest of the day recuperating from our near-death experience. We ordered out for dinner. When the doorbell rang, I met the Chinese food delivery guy at the front door with a gun hidden in the small of my back. We went to bed early and just held each other, not saying much. I think we were both conflicted about the whole affair. On one hand I think we both found it all exciting. I could understand Sabrina’s fascination with mysteries. They were addictive. On the other hand, they were also dangerous. I had waited almost forty years to fall in love. Was there a chance that I could lose her to a bullet? The thought was depressing to say the least. We were asleep in each other’s arms by nine o’clock and woke up at eight o’clock the next morning in practically the same position.
By ten o’clock we were on our way to Harvard. I had passed the Harvard campus in Cambridge hundreds of times in my years living in Boston, but hadn’t ever actually been on the grounds. It had sort of an old-worldly feel to it. Kind of peaceful. The fact that it was a school vacation week and there were very few students on campus probably contributed to that.
We entered the library and I was immediately brought back to the many times I was yelled at by the high school librarian for talking too loudly, so I didn’t say a word. I was never a good student in school. It wasn’t that I didn’t try, I just couldn’t focus and I didn’t like school. So even as an adult, if I ever entered a school, I regressed back to my teenage years. It was pretty depressing.
Luckily Sabrina took charge. The librarian led us back to the archive room and pointed out the yearbooks. We had already figured out that we would start with the 1983 yearbook. If we weren’t successful, we would go back a year, then ahead a year. If she was in the yearbook, it had to be somewhere around that time period. I had seen pictures of Daisy, but we both felt that it was important for Sabrina to go through the yearbook. After all, she had known Daisy for six years. She would be the one most likely to pick out Daisy’s picture.
Fatal Lies ( Lies Mystery Thriller Series Book 2) Page 7
