by Cook, Alan
Once I had the garage between us, I ran to the fence, fumbled with the latch, and quickly went through the gate. I ran down the alley toward the street where my car was parked, still limping. My ankle hurt and the pavement felt hard against my sock feet. I’d left my shoes and the flashlight, which had popped out of my mouth, behind, too panicked to try to pick them up.
I raced to my car and bent down to retrieve the key from behind the front wheel, praying it would still be there, even though I don’t pray. It was. I got the door open and fell in, shutting it behind me. I opened the window and listened for signs of pursuit. Hearing none, I started the car and drove to the corner without lights.
I turned right, away from Tom’s house, switched on the car lights, and drove away as fast as I dared, with the pedals feeling strange against my unshod feet.
CHAPTER 23
“Ice.”
I murmured the word in answer to the question from Frances about what I was doing for my sprained ankle.
“I’ll get you some right now.”
She bustled off to the kitchen. I was sitting on a couch in her back room with my right leg resting on the arm of a chair, which kept it elevated. It was neatly wrapped with a bandage Rigo had purchased. He’d also supplied a pair of crutches a member of his family used at one time. I was wearing shorts and had a stick-on bandage on my knee.
I was feeling grateful to Rigo. I could always count on him. The pain in my ankle had woken me early. I’d been waiting for the police to come and arrest me, knowing I couldn’t drive even though I’d somehow driven myself back to the motel last night, when he called from his parents’ house to find out where I was.
I was supposed to go there for breakfast. I must have drifted back to sleep. When I admitted I was in a bad way, he drove down and picked me up. I turned to him now and took his hand.
“Thank you for being my knight in shining armor.”
Rigo put his other arm around my shoulders. “Someone has to bail you out of trouble.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
Frances returned with a bag of ice cubes wrapped in a towel. We applied the ice to the swollen ankle. She looked at it with concern.
“How do you know it’s not broken?”
“I can walk on it—a little. I drove myself back to the motel last night. Besides, the only doctor I know here is a dermatologist.”
Frances frowned. “If it’s not improving by tomorrow, I want you to go to an urgent care center for X-rays. Now, tell me why you’re going to be arrested.”
Frances was another person who’d always been in my corner. Without her and Rigo, I’d either be dead or on skid row, selling my body for food.
I told her about my debacle at Tom’s house, and then gave her a list. “I left my shoes and flashlight; I left fingerprints everywhere; I broke his screen; I even left a DNA sample of blood I wiped off my knee.”
Frances laughed. “You must be the world’s worst burglar. However, I have my doubts you’ll be arrested. I suspect this is what happened. The tenant called the police, who came and found your shoes and flashlight. The tenant probably called Tom Kelly at work. The last thing Tom wants is to have the police nosing around his house. Remember, the police have been to see him, already, and he didn’t let him in. You said the tenant got a glimpse of you running away, not carrying anything, at least not anything big. Tom may have used that as an excuse not to come home while the police were there so he didn’t have to let them into the house.
“Tom probably suspects you were the burglar, but he thinks you’re Aiko, and the only connection he has to that name is a video. You didn’t even give him a phone number, which was the smartest thing you did. If he happens to figure out you’re really Cynthia, he definitely doesn’t want the police involved. As far as the evidence you left, although the police took your fingerprints, that was when you didn’t have an identity. In addition, the only place your DNA exists is in my genealogy project, and the police don’t have access to that. Lots of women wear size nine shoes. So I wouldn’t worry too much. Incidentally, speaking of DNA, the lab received the DNA sample from Jason II. It’s being processed now.”
Rigo said, “What if the tenants had a key and let the police into the house?”
I’d already envisioned that. “They might have obtained my DNA from the trashcan. I didn’t leave anything else, except fingerprints. No cards with my name and address.” Then I remembered. “Oh, there is one thing. Tom took some pictures of me with his digital camera. The police may have found that.”
Frances shrugged. “Even with pictures, the police aren’t going to make the connection to Cynthia without Tom’s help, and as I said, he’s not going to point them in that direction, even if he figures it out. If you get indicted, everything you know about Tom suddenly comes into play.”
Rigo wasn’t satisfied. “You need to give her the lecture on not breaking into people’s homes in the first place. She won’t listen to me. I thought everything was fine when she called me last night and said she’d left Tom’s place safely. I never dreamed she’d break in after he left.”
Frances smiled, faintly. “At least she won’t be doing that again for a few days.” She turned to me. “Let’s talk about the evidence you found. Which of course will never be admissible in any courtroom this side of Mars. Penicillin. Tom’s treating some disease; the scammer has a disease that might be treatable with penicillin. As I’ve said, I don’t believe in coincidences.”
I’d shown Frances the charts of the Boyd family genealogy Tom printed out for me. She looked at them now. “Tom knows the Boyds’ complete family tree and that Jason III was murdered. He has Timothy Boyd, who was also murdered, on his tree. And, perhaps most interesting of all, he’s flying to Edinburgh where Timothy’s brother, Jason IV, lives.”
I said, “He didn’t tell me that. I only know it because I found his e-ticket.”
I was about to say more when Rigo interrupted. “Why would he tell you? He’s very careful. He doesn’t know you. It’s not wise to tell strangers you’re going out of town for ten days. They might burglarize your house while you’re gone. Although why he would suspect an innocent girl like you of being a burglar I can’t imagine.”
Rigo and Frances had a laugh at my expense. I ignored them.
“He did tell me a lot about himself. The plane tickets haven’t shown up on his credit card statement yet. He must have just made the reservations.”
Frances said, “Or he could have paid cash he took from the ten thousand.”
Rigo, who had a masters degree in psychology, chimed in.
“One thing is interesting to me. From what you’ve told me, he has OCD—obsessive compulsive disorder. Everything has to be exactly in its place. If he’s so compulsive, why hasn’t he entered the date of death for Timothy Boyd on his chart?”
Frances nodded. “Probably because he didn’t kill Timothy Boyd and doesn’t know he’s dead. You didn’t find any evidence that he’s been to Northern Ireland. He couldn’t have paid cash for those plane tickets if he had gone because that was before he scammed Mrs. Horton.”
I thought about what she said. “So your theory that the same person killed both Timothy and Jason is wrong.”
“Not necessarily. The killer could be someone else. We don’t have any evidence that Tom killed Jason III. It happened on a Friday night, and he was supposedly working.”
I’d never told them about the letter he sent me, implying he’d killed Jason. My feelings were mixed. “His shift doesn’t start until eleven p.m. The murder took place about nine-thirty. He could have killed Jason and then gone to work afterward. However, he’d have to have some connection to Jason to know about the party. He claimed he’d never met Jason. I think he told the truth.”
“Okay, he might still be a suspect. But at the moment we can’t prove he did it.”
“Is there anything we can tell the police now?”
Frances shook her head, vigorously. “Nothing that won�
��t get you into hot water way over your head. Besides, your evidence wouldn’t hold up in court, even if it was collected in a legal manner. It’s true that some of these things, like the penicillin prescription, can easily be traced to find out what it was for, but you need warrants and subpoenas and stuff like that to get that information, and you need more than just theories to obtain them. You didn’t happen to see the name of the doctor who wrote the prescription, did you?”
I shook my head. I’d failed that test.
“Doesn’t matter. There’s doctor-patient confidentiality. A doctor won’t give us that information.”
Rigo was still holding my hand. He looked at me. “It sounds like you’ve done just about everything you can do, sweetheart. Time to step back and let the police handle it.”
“The police aren’t handling it. They haven’t caught the scammer and they haven’t caught the murderer. If the same person killed Jason and Timothy, the police won’t make that connection. If Tom’s not a killer, why is he going to Edinburgh?”
Frances was looking at the Boyd genealogy charts. “Tom’s connection to the Boyds goes back to his great grandmother, Jean Kelly, who, according to what Tom told you, received financial aid from Jason Boyd I. That’s suspicious. You said you gave Tom the DNA test kit?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s hope he sends it in.”
I hadn’t made that connection before. “You mean Tom may be a Boyd?”
“It’s certainly possible, although he wouldn’t have been able to prove it yet. If he has the Boyd Y-DNA, that would be overwhelming evidence he’s descended from Jason I. We can compare his DNA to that of Jason II. He may suspect he’s a Boyd and resent the fact that his grandfather was treated like a bastard, instead of a member of the family.”
Rigo listened attentively to Frances, and then spoke. “Although we don’t think Tom killed Timothy, he might have killed Jason III. He may have a source of information we don’t know about that informed him about the party. He could be going after Jason IV, especially if he murdered Jason III. One of his obsessions seems to be with the Boyd name. Maybe he wants to end the line of Boyds, make the name disappear. He may figure that the Boyds treated his ancestor like dirt, and the Boyd name doesn’t deserve to continue.”
Rigo, without knowing it, had walked right into my hands. I spoke casually. “I think I’ll take a trip to Edinburgh. I want to meet all the cousins I can—while they’re still alive.”
***
Rigo drove me to an urgent care center near where he lived. They doctor there took x-rays of my ankle and confirmed it wasn’t broken. He rebandaged it and prescribed what he called RICE—rest, ice, compression, elevation. As a runner I’d already heard about this treatment. He agreed I was doing the right things.
Rigo tried to talk me out of going to Edinburgh, using arguments about the risk and my bad ankle. I told him if there was any risk it was to Jason IV, and since I wasn’t leaving for six days my ankle would have a chance to heal. To shut him up, we went to my motel and figured out how to have sex without hurting my ankle.
We were lying on my motel bed, naked, when Rigo said something that touched me.
“You know, I really care for you. But you ride on the wind. You blow in, unexpectedly, and then you blow away again and I don’t know when you’re coming back. And sometimes the wind can be dangerous. I worry about you.”
I told Rigo I loved him. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t ready to settle down yet, but he already knew that.
There was a loud knock on the door of the motel room. “Police. Open up.”
CHAPTER 24
Rigo and I looked at each other. We were still naked.
Rigo was the one to take action. “Just a minute.” He leapt out of bed and stepped into a pair of pants, not bothering with underwear. I couldn’t move that fast. I pulled the sheet over me and cowered beneath it. He went to the door and yelled through it.
“I’m going to open the door.”
He opened it, gingerly. Two uniformed police officers, a man and a woman, came barging through the doorway, guns drawn. The male officer took a bead on Rigo while the female concentrated on me.
She glanced at a piece of paper she was carrying. “Are you Cynthia Sakai?”
I acknowledged that I was in a voice somewhere between a squeak and a croak. She spoke again.
“Cynthia Sakai, you’re under arrest for breaking and entering. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”
My voice was still betraying me, but I managed to convey the impression that I did. She told me to get up.
“I don’t have any clothes on.”
The female cop looked at her partner. “Wait outside.”
“But…”
“Wait outside. And take him with you.”
She gestured toward Rigo. Both went outside, reluctantly. I removed the sheet and sat up on the bed. At least she didn’t have to search me for weapons. She saw the bandage on my ankle.
“What happened to you?”
“Sprained ankle.”
My clothes were in a disorganized heap on the floor. This was very embarrassing. I dressed slowly while the officer stood watching me, still holding her gun as if I were about to pull a weapon out of who knows where. How had they identified me? It had to be the fingerprints. Then I remembered. Detective Rossi had taken my prints when I spoke to him, so he could distinguish them from any other prints on the letter. I’d forgotten about that.
“How did you track me here?”
“I’ll do the talking.” She hesitated, and then added, “One word of advice. If you don’t want people to know where you are, don’t carry a cell phone.”
My phone must have a GPS in it. I remembered something else that justified her caution and was going to get me into a lot of trouble. I’d better come clean.
“There’s a gun in my purse.”
She grabbed the purse and dumped the contents on the bed. Both the gun and the knife fell out. She placed them in separate plastic bags she pulled from her pocket and looked at me.
“Do you have a permit for this?”
“Of course.”
Brave words since I didn’t have the faintest idea whether Kyle had cleared it with the police. The officer looked around the room.
“Is it okay if we search this place?”
I had no idea what the law was. “Sure. You’ve already seen everything there is to see.” I saw her playing with the handcuffs on her belt. I didn’t want to be handcuffed. That would be the ultimate indignity. “I can’t walk without crutches.”
She apparently made the decision that I wasn’t dangerous enough to handcuff, and I wouldn’t use the crutches as weapons. I picked up the crutches and we went outside. Rigo and the male officer were talking to each other as if they were good friends. Great. Rigo gave me thumbs up. Just what I needed when I was going to jail. I frowned at him.
“Ask your parents about a good defense attorney.”
The black and white patrol car said Redondo Beach Police on it. They must be doing this for LAPD. I wondered where they were taking me. The female officer opened the back door and guided me inside, making sure I didn’t hit my head. Considerate. I pulled my crutches into the car. She shut the door. There were no inside door handles, and a metal screen separated the backseat from the front.
The police officers went back into the motel room, apparently to search it. They also had the keys to my rental car. Rigo waved to me and then got into his car and left. I figured they’d told him not to hang around. I was alone.
***
The holding cell or whatever it was called wasn’t that bad. It was small but fairly clean and had a couple of benches. The only other occupant was a blond girl—she couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty—wearing some sort of a dress and oversize
d sweatshirt.
I laboriously sat down on a bench and stacked my crutches beside me. What happened now? I’d been told to wait. I had no other information. I had nothing with me—not a purse or a cell phone. The police had confiscated those items.
“What are you in for?”
I glanced at the girl to make sure she was speaking to me. There wasn’t anyone else present.
“Breaking and entering.”
“Yeah, you look like a hardened criminal.”
She didn’t exactly fit the profile, either. “How about you?”
“I lost my top.”
“I’m sorry?”
“On the beach. I lost my top.”
“You were on the beach today? What is it, April first? This is some sort of an April Fool’s joke, isn’t it?”
“No, it was warm this afternoon. I’m in college but I didn’t have any classes, so I decided to go to the beach.”
This wasn’t making any sense. “And you got arrested. Do you want to tell me a little more?”
“I was in this kind of secluded spot, so I took my top off. Next thing I know, this big, burly cop is grabbing me and handcuffing me to himself.”
“He what?”
She stuck out her arm. There was a red circle around her wrist.
“What did he do that for?”
“I was a flight risk. A danger to society.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shrugged She didn’t seem terribly upset. “That’s the way the codes are written. Nipples are obscene. At least on women. Remember Janet Jackson? Her wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl broadcast almost destroyed western civilization. Of course, men go topless all the time.”
“But they wear those long, ugly shorts.”
“If a guy wears a Speedo, will he be arrested?”
“No.” Good point. “Don’t the cops here have anything better to do?”
“He was just doing his job. But he didn’t have to hurt my wrist.”
“What will happen to you?”
“I’ll probably be fined.”
“What will you do then?”
