I left with three dresses and the most expensive jeans I had ever indulged in. I didn’t even know jeans could cost that much.
“Now I’ll take you home,” Tracy said with a giant grin and her ebony eyes popped open wide. “You’re ready for Saturday.”
Tracy finally allowed me to turn back on my cell. I had eighteen voicemails. Fifteen of them were from Jaxon Giles.
I ASKED TRACY TO DROP ME off at Jaxon’s office and face the embarrassment of him seeing all of my shopping bags, let alone the emerging new me I saw in the mirror.
He didn’t notice.
“What happened, Jaxon?”
“What happened is Sandy Vickery.”
I waited for his composure. It took a while. Quicksand that wasn’t so quick but sinking victims.
“My office buddy is in the hospital right now. Simply took a sip of water from the cooler right outside my office. Turns out it was full of poison.”
“And you think your ex had something to do with it?”
“I don’t think. I know. Turns out the cooler was laced with muriatic acid.”
“Forgive me, but your office has water coolers?”
“It’s green. Our company is green. No plastic bottles.”
As much as I wanted to nail this woman, this was a stretch, even for my active imagination.
“She’s in the pool business. She has that stuff sitting around like we have pennies we can’t get rid of fast enough,” Jaxon said.
“Okay. Did anyone see her come in this morning?”
“This is a busy office with eighty-two agents. Another couple of hundred come and go. We have other brokers coming in, clients, title company reps, mortgage people, and home warranty people. No one around here would recognize a woman that’s been out of my life for all these years.”
“I understand what you’re telling me. But what you just said won’t help our case. Anyone could have tampered with that water cooler.”
“I think there are seven coolers throughout the entire office. Tell me, why was the cooler right outside my door the only one with acid in it?”
“How do you know it was muriatic acid?” I asked.
“I lived with the bitch. Our place could reek of the stuff. It’s not like I ever tasted it, but I sure as hell spit out the water from my mouth and ran to the men’s room to rinse it. I know a little will go a long way.”
I got it. Manning wouldn’t. Muriatic acid is freely used and available for many purposes. Even if you just went with the pool usage, Manning would pull up some statistic about how many swimming pools were in Tucson. Damn, this woman was eating at my skin.
“Let’s jump in my car,” Jaxon said. “I’ll drive you home, but only after you let me rehire you and never let me fire you again until we have this woman out of my life.”
As Jaxon helped me with all my shopping bags, shuffling them into his trunk, I asked, “How is your co-worker?”
“I haven’t heard what kind of internal damage he might have, but half of his lower lip is all but gone.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
IT WAS NEVER TOO late to call Schlep. I didn’t think the boy genius ever slept. I asked him to tell me everything he knew about muriatic acid and human skin.
“You can put a man with solid gold teeth into a container of that stuff and expect to find nothing. Nothing. Gone. Even the gold.”
“I don’t understand. If it dissolves everything, then what can hold the stuff?”
“Plastic. Just like the gallon jug of it you buy from your pool supply store.”
It wasn’t any eureka moment, but I was getting closer. I saw it. I felt it. When my calves physically twitch, I know I’m on to something. This something was Sandra Vickery.
And I still had nothing Manning could take to the D.A.
“One more thing, Cassidy,” Schelp said. “I think I’ve figured out the code to those stange initials on the invoices at the design shop.
“J. G. Jaxon Giles, although he disputes any purchases for rugs. The V.G. is Vickery Giles. And the V.P. is Vickery pools. It all fits into my algorithms. Honest.”
CARSON CALLED ME FIVE minutes later and reviewed her findings from the Phoenix trip.
“I tailed Vickery back up to Phoenix. Same thing. She visited a few of her stores. Then she went in to a furrier salon in Scottsdale. She came out with a long and thick cloth bag.”
“She bought a fur coat. Not unheard of,” I said, “even in the desert.”
“I talked to the store owner,” Carson said. She recapped the conversation for me.
“I wonder if you can help me. The woman that just left. Ms. Vickery.” She fumbled for the right words, “Is she okay?”
“I don’t talk about my customers.”
Carson threw down three Benjamins, like you would do in a dirty-dive bar.
“Okay. Sure. This isn’t exactly Aspen. The lady next door sells five-hundred dollar swimsuits, and I get to see her customers stream in, and leave with a shopping bag. Ms. Vickery is a pretty steady client. I can count on her a couple of times a year. That’s big, considering I’m in the friggin’ desert. I do most of my sales in leather.”
“I’m just asking. I am concerned about her welfare,” Carson said.
“Well, yes. Maybe physically she’s a ten. But she’s always been a little off. This time was no exception.”
“What do you mean?”
“We monogram the linings, of course. Usually she asks for a simple ‘S’ and ‘V’. It’s popular for our clients to use their signatures. She’s done that. This time she asked for something totally different.”
Carson gave him another bill.
“She wanted her signature on the lining. But this time it was ‘Mrs. Sandra Giles.’ Never heard of that last name. Guess she got married.”
Carson closed her notebook and looked up at me. “That’s all I have. More weirdness. Nothing criminal.”
LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON I walked into the small church that hosted what was left of our dwindling victims’ family members meeting. While everyone remained eager for any kind of resolve, most had accepted the confession and made the decision to move on with their lives. For those few in the room, their vacuous eyes said it all. They were clinging on to very little hope. The scent of doom fell heavily on the room and into the laps of all of those that were clasping and wringing their hands together.
Those that did not show? Seven persons called the case closed with the confession, even without knowing where their loved ones were, but down a deep well. The congresswoman’s husband never bothered to attend one meeting. His wife was different. Special. A couple of parents that weren’t in the state. Although the travel became too much for them they still asked for my email updates. And the husband of the interior designer that brought the funds to continue my work to the table. I worried about him. I saw the brewing actions of a vigilante. It was what I didn’t see that bothered me the most. He was full of rage, rightfully, but he could not express it. Behind what was once his polite demeanor, I saw the veil of a scurvy shell of a man who no longer held regard for all the work we had been doing.
At a young age my brother had fallen to his death. Accidental, they said. And I will forever be afraid of heights. Many years later my mother passed away. So many sirens coming to save her. A DNR that I refused to submit. So many sirens in such a short period of time I will forever freeze when I hear the distinct sound of an any first responder teams out on the street.
What was this husband so afraid of that he seemed to be distancing himself, but maybe from his own self?
SATURDAY MORNING I HAD time to connect with my team members and see what they had pulled up on Michael Scores.
Nothing. No bank transactions, although that alone didn’t surprise me because we all knew the man had a private stash somewhere. No credit or debit card usage.
Carson suggested maybe he might be another victim.
I didn’t buy it, but she had a viable point. Nothing could be ruled out.
I asked them to conduct a thorough search. I wanted to know the names and dates of anyone that had visited Leonard Green in prison. He had been incarcerated, charged with attempted manslaughter and released on bail. The case was weak. I knew that because there was no case. The jail would have a long record of any phone calls and mail, both incoming and outgoing.
JAXON RECEIVED THE CALL with a familiar ID. His country club. The director of membership.
“Hey, John, what’s up?”
“We have a bit of a situation here, Jaxon.”
“How can I help?”
“It’s Mrs. Giles.”
“Now what?”
“She talked her way through the main gate wanting to see me in my office. She pulled out her checkbook and asked to become a social member.”
“No. No way. You know I have a restraining order against her, and for the record her name is Ms. Sandra Vickery. She is not supposed to come near the club.”
“Yes. I have a copy of that order right here. I showed it to her.”
“I can imagine how that went over.”
“Hear me out, Jaxon. She made a pretty good case. She can bring a lot of her charity fundraising events to the club. She promised she could fill our main dining room, once a month, during non-peak times. She said if she didn’t come through, she’d write us a check for that month.”
“Now you hear me out. I’ve been a member for over ten years. I bring you in plenty of business. Don’t get greedy on me, John.”
“But, what harm—”
“Plenty. Blackball her. And warn your guards at the gate that they are not to let her on the grounds.”
FOR THE FIRST TIME in a very long time, I patted down my ‘convertible-hair’ and refreshed my lipstick before entering a restaurant. Truthfully, I’d only been to the top level of The Five Palms, which in fact was a totally different restaurant, for happy hour. Far more casual. Far less costly. I was on the main level.
I asked the hostess for Marc Julian’s table. The hostess scoured her reservations.
“I do have a Marcos Giuliani,” she said. “Are you Ms. Clark?”
I nodded, already forming serious reservations about this reservation.
He stood up, offering his brief but firm handshake when I arrived at his table.
“Who are you?” I asked with most serious fake look of concern. “I was meeting Marc Julian here.”
He laughed, his white teeth as amazing as the snowcapped mountains of the Swiss Alps I had once visited, long ago.
“I’m Marc Julian to the public. A stage name, if you like. People still recognize me, but I like being me. They don’t give me any preferential treatment.”
“Look around you, Marcos. Everyone knows who you are,” I said.
“I think they’re staring at you. You look amazing.”
“Maybe it’s the same thing. I usually go around as a Plain Jane when I’m on the job,” I lied. “I like to be me, too.”
“You are stunning.”
The martini’s came, although he insisted I could send mine back in preference of something else. I declined, and sipped.
He said, “I came prepared for a nice evening with an intelligent and fascinating woman. Suddenly I know it will be an enchanting evening.”
“But you are still investigating me, right?”
“My team receives around fifteen, maybe twenty tips a week. Most are ludicrous. I decided to follow my gut instincts, which pretty much I do every day. This time it was not for any story, but to have dinner with you.
“Rumors have it that you are a seer.”
“I’m more of a feeler than a seer.”
“Now that intrigues me,” he said.
I ignored the possible hidden sexual intent. One nice dinner wasn’t going to get me into his bed, even though that idea intrigued me.
“Your source?”
“You know I can’t divulge that.”
“I get it. I get that it’s because I haven’t solved all of these missing person cases. I can narrow your source down to two. It was either Sandra Vickery or an out-of-control husband of a victim.”
Marc, or Marcos—which I would now call him, at least for the evening, raised his martini glass to toast. He then told me he wouldn’t get within ten feet of Sandra Vickery. Times Twenty.
“Why? What do you know?”
“I’ll tell you, but that’s the end of business. I know what you most likely know. She owns most of the politicians and authorities in town. She clearly has one helluva an unknown agenda.
“That said, no more. This is a real date. I hope you’re a carnivore because I’ve ordered us the Wagyu beef.”
“You have to be out of your mind. You don’t even know if you like me.”
“True. And the same for you. If you don’t find me memorable you can at least remember the meal.”
At the end of our extensive dining experience I did wonder if I would receive another handshake. Maybe a gentle hug. Maybe a peck on the cheek.
Instead my cell rang.
Schlep said, “Some are loose connections, but Carson and I are both certain and can guarantee that Sandra Vickery knew, or at least encountered, all of our missing vics. The same is true of Jaxon.”
I looked at Marcos. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
“Not a lead for me?” he asked as he reached toward me for a quick embrace.
“I can tell you that you wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole. Times twenty.”
I sure as hell would.
Chapter Fifty-Five
I HAD EVERYTHING I needed. Nothing Chief Manning required. Our team meeting in the back room of the bookstore always rejuvenated me. If air could be a texture this place would be polished oak, laced with a musky patchouli oil scent. There’s something magical about hundreds of books that have actually been read.
“Sandra Vickery is somehow involved in the disappearances of these women. Are we in agreement?”
Schlep and Carson nodded.
“I’d guess, at a minimum, she is orchestrating this. What we don’t have are hostages or bodies. Hard to prosecute. And we don’t have motive.
“Let’s brainstorm. No bodies. We have to find the perceived motive.”
“I’ll play,” Schlep said.
Carson shrugged her shoulders and started tapping the wood veneer table with her pencil. “I give up. What exactly are we playing?”
“We go back to the good old rules of motive and crime. The seven deadly sins,” Schlep volunteered.
“Although we have eight. The ‘just for the helluva it’ eighth deadly sin,” I said.
Carson flipped the pencil lose from her hand. “I’m in. But if we are focusing on Sandra Vickery then we can presume these crimes are premeditated and not just for the hell of it.”
“Down to seven,” I said. “What else?”
“We can strike sloth off of the list. Vickery is anything but lazy,” Schlep said.
“Probably not gluttony, although she’s a shopaholic,” Carson said.
I added, “Except this woman orders perfume custom made for her, from Paris, and then goes in to department stores to spray on free tester samples.”
“And while she can be incredibly cheap, we know she has pride. She’s proud of her last name. Proud of her power. Proud of her closet full of Chanels and drawers full of pearls,” Carson piped in. “She’s a control freak.”
“Lust. We know she still has a sick thing for her ex,” I said.
“Envy. We know Vickery had some form of contact with each of these missing women. And she’s not getting any younger, no matter how many times we tail her to the spa or the plastic surgery center,” Schlep said.
As per my usual, the hairs on the back of my neck raised up in full alert. “That’s it. Mirror, mirror on the wall. She’s taking out anyone she perceives as a threat. It’s lust and greed and envy, all rolled up in one, and we haven’t even moved on to wrath.”
“So it’s not a case of if she can’t have him, no
one will. It’s that she’s eliminating anyone that he might have,” Carson murmured.
I asked them to run through the list of victims and find any more possible links between them and Jaxon Giles, no matter how brief, innocent, or petty. At this point, any of them standing in line behind Jaxon at a Walmart or Nordstrom’s would be good enough for me.
I had closed my tablet when Schlep said, “Hold on. If it’s her perceived competition that she’s eliminating, why not Jessica Silva?”
“ It’s the game. The building of confidence.
“Schlep, can you run down the name of Vickery’s last hired and fired shrink?”
“Sure.”
“Send me his contact information. I’m suddenly feeling sick in the head. We need to nail this woman with facts and forensic evidence. Again, we have no room for any of those CSI Effect in the courtroom.”
I HAD AN APPOINTMENT with Sandra Vickery’s psychologist, Dr. Opitz, at four the next day. I might have mentioned I was suicidal, or something like that, just to make it happen.
He motioned me in to sit down. I’ve seen plenty, but I was taken aback at the surroundings of what was one of the most prominent doctor’s offices in all of Tucson.
I had walked straight into one of Hemmingway’s houses. Rattan and bamboo furnishings. Exotic palm prints. Tropical ceiling fans. Colorful art with no meaning, I suppose, unless you were an aficionado of the abstract that had no meaning. Of course, that’s probably where his talents came in. I could just hear him. “What do you see? No. What do you really see?”
He motioned me toward a deep cushion chair with wide, curved arms, befitting as furnishings under a ramada on some tropical island.
“I understand you need me today. I’m here. You are here. Why don’t you begin by telling me why you need to see me.”
“You were told I’m suicidal?”
“And you were directed to go to the hospital, but declined.”
“I’m here under false pretenses.”
Bye Bye Bones (A CASSIDY CLARK NOVEL Book 1) Page 21
