I ARRIVED OUTSIDE the hacienda-style ranch of the cabin co-owners, armed with information that the husband was a workaholic and the wife was a lonely homebody. Sure enough, a male left the home before seven, only pausing to grab the morning paper and toss it closer toward the front door. After his car rounded the corner, I went up rang the bell, bringing along my tablet and a real estate agent’s badge I happened to acquire the day before. I was legit. I did have my license as I invested some of my book royalty income in to real estate. The badge was a last minute idea because I certainly didn’t have any business cards.
She stopped me at the door with a flat voice, “I really want to sell. So does my husband. The other partners don’t want to put it on the market so you would be representing only our partial ownership.”
She had one hand on a cane. The other arm came up toward me, with her palm facing up, as if to show indifference. Her smile was warm, and totally fake.
“I understand. It’s perfect. Lots of snowbirds dream of getting a small piece of a cabin up here, let alone Tucson’s residents that have the most primal zest to escape the summer heat.”
“Right. It’s called Summerhaven for a reason,” she said, opening the door and gesturing me in toward her kitchen.
Wearing black yoga pants and a tight white top, the cane didn’t suit her as a physically fit woman in her forties. She took a seat in an equipale chair. A brown liquid filled the glass next to her. I’d already spied the opened can of diet coke with an almost empty rum bottle next to it.
“Where are my manners? If you’d like some lemonade it’s fresh and in the refrigerator.”
“No thanks. May I ask why you are thinking about selling?”
“The property as recently been—what’s the word? Stigmatized?”
“Excuse me?” I answered.
It didn’t take much to break her, once she believed she had my utter confidence. She was dying to tell someone that wouldn’t care what she had to say.
“I don’t know much about real estate law, but in case you have to disclose it, a man was found dead there.”
“These things happen,” I eased.
“Not murder.”
“Someone you knew?”
She nursed her drink as if it were a perfectly prim and proper thing to do at eleven in the morning. I remained silent, watching her fidget with her wedding rings.
“With our collective ownership we decided not to allow any non-owners to stay at the cabin without one of us present. We don’t even have maid service.”
“No one?”
Casting her eyes to the Saltillo tile floor, she mumbled, “I may have given someone a key. He’s a close friend. A confidant. He shares things with me. I share things with him. He really wasn’t involved, I can tell you that.”
“You know you don’t have to tell me any of this,” I said.
Her blue eyes raised to meet mine. “My friend is well-known around town.”
“Well, then I’m sure he wasn’t involved in any of this. Do you mind if I get that lemonade now?”
“Help yourself.” She waved me away.
I took my time, with my back turned away from her. I didn’t have to say another word.
“I appreciate that you didn’t ask me about the cane. I told my husband that I hurt my back during a Pilates class. My friend can be a bit feisty in the bedroom.”
Playing dumb, I gave her a backward glance and said, “Your friend?”
“Michael Scores. You know, I’m going to leave my husband. I feel like something magical is about to happen in my life, and it won’t be with him. Michael is so much different.”
“I’m sure you are right. Listen, I need to run. I’m sorry.”
She stared at me, her mouth open.
“By the way, if you ever want someone to talk to, here’s my card.”
I placed my P.I. card on the table next to her. She didn’t even look at it. I think she was worried she had told me too much.
She did.
Now I had a problem. Scores name had come up again. I had to pursue what my gut told me was some involvement on his part. And I didn’t know what to divulge to Tracy.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
MICHAEL SCORES ORDERED a second beer at his favorite hole-in-the-wall bar, where patrons might recognize him but rarely acknowledged him. Sometimes, pushing the ego aside, he wanted to be anonymous and just blend in to the dark wood paneling on the walls.
He peered around the bar. Every corner. Was someone watching him? Ever since the police had questioned him about his energy drinks at the television station, and then entered his home to have him reveal the secret recipe, he knew. They were on to him. Ridiculous. Let them spin their wheels. They had nothing.
He wondered, in an inaudible voice under his breath, “Did anyone notice the twitch in my eyes when I did this evening’s news?” Even Jessica Silva wouldn’t have seen his knees shaking under the news desk, but who saw the tremors in his fingers?
He hated that he’d been the one to insist on covering the missing sisters in 2013. Dumb.
He had to clean up his act. Abandon the paranoia.
He ordered tequila, neat. A double. It was last call.
I WRACKED MY BRAIN. Scores drove a screaming new Porsche. That was not the car that I heard speed away. And then I saw it. He also was the registered owner of a Jeep Cherokee. Interesting. Maybe? Not a distinguishable engine sound. But why, if he were there for a romp in the sack with a married woman, was Marks there? And why kill him? From the photos of the cabin, no one got anything on but a murder.
I had nothing on him but a bad feeling. And Tracy beamed with happiness of late. She had told me that her new beau had hinted at a trip away. Just the two of them. He told her to make sure she had a valid passport.
Against a tide of opposing emotions, I elected not to say anything to her. For the time being.
AFTER MUCH NAGGING, I finally got the scans of all the business cards found at the scene of the murder of Karl Marks that had any writing or printing on the back.
There were four of them. Two had QR codes. One, a phone number. Of course, that one went to a strip club. The fourth one had something scribbled on it.
“Schlep. Enlarge this, please.”
“The one from Vickery Pools?”
“That very one.”
Schlep put it on the big screen in front of us at the station. A discretionary courtesy David Manning granted me.
“What do you see, Schlep?”
“Nu. M. Sigs.”
“Enlarge it.”
He brought it up a notch. “This is as big as she’ll go without blurring.”
“Look at it. That looks like an ‘n’, albeit a piss poor one, in the ‘sigs’. It’s signs.”
“Where does that leave us, Cass? We have an ‘m-sig’, and now an ‘m-sign’. A sign of something?”
“Only it’s plural, Schlep. It reads signs.”
DAVID MANNING HAD had enough. He had Michael Scores brought back down to the station.
“We’re charging you, Mr. Scores,” he hedged his bet.
“What the hell? For what?”
“Poisoning. The attempted murder of Jessica Silva.”
“That’s ludicrous. You don’t have anything.”
“We have motive. Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins, and you won’t find many folks around here that don’t think you are jealous of Ms. Silva.
“And you had opportunity. Ms. Silva didn’t ingest much that day prior to the broadcast. In fact, she had some green tea at home, some of her own lemon bars, and your magic shake.”
“That’s right. You didn’t find anything in the staff kitchen.”
“You yourself said that you took your jar home to clean it.”
“Preposterous. I want my attorney.”
“Your right. We’ll schedule your arraignment and the judge will likely give you bail.”
“Okay. Let’s do it,” Michael yelled.
“Not tonight. We’ll
get you in the judge’s chambers tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re keeping me in this rat hole overnight?”
“Who knows? It might make for a good story for you to run with, cramming the press right down my throat.”
First thing in the morning the D.A. dropped the charges before they even began. Michael Scores was free.
JAXON AND JESSICA LASTED three weeks apart from one another. He picked her up in a rented Chrysler. Even with Mexican car insurance for the trip, he was not about to drive his new Jaguar across the border.
They drove in silence almost three hours before they reached the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. One hour to go.
Jessica asked, “Do you think Sandra knows where we are?”
“Let’s make a deal. Since I don’t know what the hell her name is these days, she’s just my ex.”
“Okay. Do you think your ex knows where we are?”
“No way. You made the arrangements for the hotel on your computer at the station, right?”
Jessica felt a twinge go down her back. “Yes.”
“That woman is a lot of things, but she’s no computer hacker. Relax.”
After checking in to the Las Palomas Resort, Jaxon immediately sought out a cruise. A dinner cruise for two.
They walked down the shoreline, hand in hand. Jessica kicked off her orange espadrilles in favor of her toes sinking in to the foamy laps of ocean water across the sand.
As they neared their charter a Mexican man came running toward them.
“I’m sorry, Se̴͠nor. I know not how to call you. The boat we have. There’s been a fire. I can give you a bigger one, tomorrow night. I promise it be nice and safe.”
Jessica clutched Jaxon’s hand; her way of saying no way was she going out on any of this man’s boats.
They headed back to the resort, Jessica confirming what her gripping hand communicated to Jaxon.
“Let’s just have a nice dinner right here at La Maria’s Bistro. Lobsters and shrimp are in season. Tomorrow night we’ll look at the other boat, and check out the captain, and we’ll decide.”
Jessica acquiesced with a shrug of her shoulders, and then enjoyed one of the finest lobster tails she’d ever devoured. The shrimp were a bonus, and they’d brought down their ice chest so that they could load it up on the return home.
Returning to the beach grounds of the resort, with a full moon lighting their way, they frolicked and kissed and laughed away their stresses, all with the magical rote sounds of the ocean in the background.
They returned to their suite, where rocket-sex would be a given.
The flame of desire was extinguished when they saw the fire extinguisher splayed out on the master bed.
The note read: Bad boat don’t float.
“What is it, Jaxon?” Jessica asked.
Unless someone is fluent in English, Mexicans don’t use contractions. They aren’t a part of the Spanish language.
Chapter Forty
I RETURNED JAXON GILES call within fifteen minutes.
“We’ll get right back on it, Jaxon. I have a new shadow.”
“Shadow?”
“Surveillance. He’s good. But we can’t go back and trace Vickery’s steps. You told us we were off duty.”
“It had to be her. No one else. I don’t know how she found out where we were, but it was her.”
“Is there any paper trail? Online hotel reservations?”
“Jessica made them from her office computer. A quick reservation at a resort we’ve frequented.”
His voice fell flat and sharp, like large glass shards on the bottom of a pool.
“What aren’t you telling me, Jaxon?” I asked.
“It’s just that we finally thought this evil was behind us. That we could be a couple again.”
IT TURNED OUT WE COULD document Vickery’s prior whereabouts. Sort of. While Jaxon and Jessica drove down to Puerto Peñasco, Jaxon’s ex drove to San Diego to obtain signatures on papers to tidy up her acquisition of four new stores.
MICHAEL SCORES HAD TO GET it together. He had his freedom, and he would use the whole goddamned incident to make a mockery of the police chief.
He wanted to take a week off. Maybe London for some more suits. Maybe Punta Cana – the hot new Dominican Republic resort. Maybe not. His instincts told him to suck it up and put on his happy face in public. An odd instinct. He couldn’t leave now because the bitch had gone on vacation, leaving the station to hire on another bimbo anchor and leaving him stuck.
On the air: Michael Scores said, “While our friend, Jessica Silva, takes some time off, you are stuck with me and the glamorous Tracy McClendon, whom we’re happy to announce is now part of our station.”
“I’ll be with you for our morning and noon news starting in three weeks, but the remainder of this week Michael is stuck with me,” Tracy said with a broad grin and gleaming white teeth.
CHIEF MANNING, FORMERLY known as my friend David until the next time we reached a détente, called me down to the station. When he called me Cassidy it was never a good sign.
“I’m sorry I pulled your pay, Cassidy. The budget and all.”
“And the lack of my results.”
“It’s a tricky case, or cases, but it is what it is.”
“Fine,” I said with defiance.
“That didn’t sound like a fine fine.”
“I don’t need your money. I like it, but I don’t need it. I’m on to something, and maybe when I do produce the goods your budget people can buy me a cake. Maybe a martini. Maybe Alaskan King crab legs.”
“Any hint as to what you are on to?”
“I’m off the payroll, so no.”
Feeling vainglorious, I marched out of his office.
CARSON GREER’S CALL went to my voicemail.
“Of note, Michael Scores is a customer of Cosas Buenas Spa and Salon.”
TRACY AND I MET AT our favorite coffee house. One that actually served real food.
“Damn, girlfriend. You look fabulous. And that means, what’s up?” Tracy asked.
“Never mind. I’m just experimenting with my inner woman. Ever since I went to the spa on business. I didn’t turn up much, but maybe me.”
“I didn’t see this girl when I stayed with you. Keep on experimenting and keep on, girl.”
“My turn. You didn’t tell me you were jumping stations,” I said. I had more urgent things to discuss with her, like Michael Scores being arrested for the poisoning of his co-anchor, and like how he played with a married woman. I was mustering up my courage to tell her.
“They’ve been wooing me for some time for a place on their daytime news. They needed a quick sub for Jessica, and upped the offer. As soon as she’s back, I’ll have a few weeks off, then become an early-to-bed girl for the early morning and noon news.”
“That might be sooner than you think. Jessica and Jaxon have already returned from their trip.”
She shrugged. “Oh well, working right next to Michael is just plain weird.”
“You’re still seeing him?”
“The charges were dropped, Cass. But we do have an agreement that we can still see other people.”
“Like you and your Kermit the Frog?”
“It’s not like I have someone else, but it’s a clear option. And it worked out well for me.”
“I see your shit-eating grin. What’s up?”
“I think it might be the hot button. He’s asked me to fly to London with him. One whirlwind weekend.”
“London, for a weekend?”
“He knows I’ll be scheduled out once I take on these morning shows. And, those famed bespoke Saville Row suits beckon him. Timing is everything.”
“Wow. That’s quite an invitation.”
“Yeah, but he’s cheap. He’ll pay out for his suits but probably buy me a knock-off Burberry. A glass of orange juice is so expensive there I won’t be surprised if he tells me to bring Tang.”
“Look, there are a couple of thing
s I need to tell you.”
Tracy’s phone rang.
After a quick rise from the table and a Hollywood kiss she said, “It’ll have to wait, Cass.”
She slapped down money and said she had to run on an urgent assignment. Another near drowning.
She hollered back, “I’ll call you when I get back from London.”
Just when I had the courage to say something, snitching on Scores seemed like a bad idea. She had just told me that they had an ‘arrangement’ to date other people. Her decision. He was a free man. I knew Manning had a weak case against the man. I was surprised the D.A. took so long to nip the arrest in the bud. They had a clean apothecary jar Scores had yet to return to the station. He told Manning he wasn’t that anal and didn’t drink that crap every day. There was a vague connection at the cabin on a completely different crime. The salon had scores of clients, but it was Michael Scores that interested me. What about Scores’ cell phone records that made it clear that Scores knew Karl Marks? Of course, it was Schlep that provided that evidence.
BOTH SCHLEP AND CARSON met me for a quick happy hour drink at Ra. Schlep loved sushi and I hated it. He knew it. Might make me some bonus points.
“Manning met with me. No more budget for us to work these missing people cases. I can handle your pay, but I need to know you are still onboard.”
“I’m sorry. I want to be a team player but I can’t work without pay,” Carson said, shaking her head while trying to immediately hold back tears.
“I’m not asking you to. I have a squiggly fat piggy bank account I’ve already cracked open, and I don’t mind investing it in us. I am asking that we show Chief our greatness that we can solve this on our own, before any prorogue becomes a permanently closed door.”
While Carson leaned back on the booth, Schlep sat forward. “You’re already banking the Marks case,” he said, “and our other clients can’t possibly keep you out of the red.”
“That’s my business. I have enough to worry about, but money isn’t one of them.”
Bye Bye Bones (A CASSIDY CLARK NOVEL Book 1) Page 15
