As she disappeared into the bush, I heard her say faintly, “Tigers and Egrets …”
I shivered.
“Hey, Ms. Graff.” Devlin stood at my elbow. “What are you looking in the bushes for? Lose something?”
“Did you see a little girl there a second ago? She wore a lot of glitter.” I could almost see the pink and silver sparkles floating in the air around us.
“Nah.” Devlin checked his phone. “We finished here?”
I stepped to the bush and pushed the branches aside, but only saw the block wall beyond it. No way a small girl scaled that wall without me seeing her.
I brushed hydrangea petals off me.
“You okay, Ms. Graff?”
Probably not. To his relief, I stalked to the car and thought about the encounter with Tyler’s sister as Devlin drove towards La Habra. A hallucination? Thinking over what she said, she’d called her sister ‘Leah’ when her sister’s name was Laney. She looked and felt otherworldly. And she talked about the Tustin Tigers and the East Placentia Egrets, about which she should have known nothing.
That had to do with my own delusions and nothing to do with this case.
Devlin glanced at me once or twice. Besides being one of my drivers, he and Kirsten helped me discern reality. Unfortunately he had been in the bathroom for most of my hallucination. My last hope that the conversation with Rachel had been real fizzled when I realized that the birds on her bangles and barrettes and the swirl of glowing paint on her clothes had all been of egrets.
At least I hadn’t blacked out.
Devlin pulled into the parking lot. “You sure you want me to leave you here?”
He was right to sound uneasy. We were in a dicey part of La Habra, in the parking lot of a strip mall where all the stores were either closed for the night or vacant. A hundred feet away, a battered taco truck stood in the gloom. I could smell onions and greasy corn tortillas.
I stepped from the Mustang. “I’ll be fine. Someone’s meeting me here.”
“Want me to wait till …”
“No need.” In fact, I wanted him well away from the area when Dante showed up. I mustered a smile. “Thanks for your help, Devlin. I’ll call you soon.”
“Okay.” He shot me another concerned look, but by the time he drove onto the street, he’d jacked up the music to ear-bleeding volume. I watched his taillights till they disappeared into a stream of cars heading east on Imperial Highway.
Except for the traffic noise and leaves rattling on the eucalyptus trees lining the vacant lot, I heard nothing till a voice thirty feet to my left shouted, “Ready for a taste of hell?”
CHAPTER SIX
Eating fish tacos with a side of hell
I yelped and whirled, still unsettled after the hallucination in the hydrangeas earlier. The invitation from hell came from the battered roach coach. I saw a metal spoon wave from a dimly lit window of the catering truck and heard the sizzle of something on the stove.
My therapist preached against actions like heeding the siren’s cry to wade into the murky deep. So I wouldn’t tell her.
I opened the door, stepped into the dimly lit catering truck and sat at a filthy table just beyond the freezers and burners and the counter topped with piles of food.
“Chicken or tilapia?” Dante crooned out the syllables of tilapia with lover-like yearning.
“Fish,” I said.
“Till-I-pee-in-awe,” he sang as he tipped raw slivers of fish into the smoking skillet. Okay, maybe less yearning lover and more bathroom humor.
Dante Ruiz had taken my Physics for Business majors class, the only freshman in a sea of seniors and the only one to get an A, although I did fudge six other students’ grades so we could satisfy the bell curve. He came from a home of wildly successful parents and older brothers who had gone on to prominent careers of their own. I taught Dante in three science classes. By the completion of each final project, he’d captured the interest of the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security. In that order. And not in a good way.
I’d put him in the Dead Before Thirty bucket ten minutes after I met him. By the end of his junior year, he’d gotten all he could from high school and dropped out. Still alive at twenty-six, I viewed our meetings with mixed emotions, never sure which would be our last. After my accident and the realization that I also would not fit in the confines of my previous life, I approached him for work. So student became teacher and I picked up a boatload of illegal knowledge. Although I never kept the ill-gotten gains of our work, I felt the skills I acquired were priceless.
My private investigation work was always legal. Scratch that. Mostly legally accomplished. There were times that I needed to use my new craft. Although one may argue the word “needed,” it sure helped the access to Bobbi’s computer early this morning.
Dante also came in handy when I required a driver and a reality checker in dangerous situations. Much as I would relish exposing Kirsten and Devlin to death, the resulting paperwork and possible prison time discouraged me.
“Order up, Ms. Graff.”
With a flourish, he slapped down a plate of crispy fish tacos laden with shredded cabbage and a salsa so spiked with Serrano peppers that my eyes burned.
He grabbed his own plate and sat across from me. From the fridge, he pulled out two brown bottles dripping with condensation.
“Beer,” he said. Then virtuously, “Alcohol free ‘cause I’m driving and you’re already brain damaged.”
I knocked my bottle against his. “Cheers.”
The next fifteen minutes, I downed fake beer and the best street tacos I’ve ever tasted. High praise as I work in Santa Ana and have a good taco joint close to home. When I finished, I leaned against the cracked vinyl and sighed with pleasure. “Even though you’ve not a drop of Mexican blood, you have a gift with their food, my friend.”
His hand waved grandly around the food truck which included the rafters overhung with cobwebs, dirt, grease, and fly traps. “This here is my dream, Ms. Graff. One day, I’ll leave the rat race of grifting, forgery, and ponzi schemes, take to the road, and sell my tacos throughout the Midwest. I hear they really go for ‘em in Louisiana.”
So his grasp of geography wasn’t the sharpest. Feeling mellow, I smiled. “If I can find me a funny apron, maybe I’ll join you.”
I helped him clear the table. As he took a few half-hearted swipes at the stovetop, he asked, “You gonna tell me anything about this gent we’re meeting?”
“We’re not driving to the meet in this thing, are we?”
He hooted. “Not likely I’ll endanger my retirement in the places you make me go. I parked my car at the gas station next door.”
I studied him as he locked the catering truck and set the security system with meticulous care. Inside the truck, he’d looked like a computer programmer in jeans and a black turtleneck shirt. As we walked to his car, he shrugged into a leather jacket and slipped a blade into its sheath at his belt. His face hardened in dangerous lines, and the grin he flashed my way, curled like a crocodile’s.
“Ready, Ms Graff?”
Facing a person of interest
I sat in the patio of the El Salvadoran restaurant eating alfajores, a South American sandwich cookie with a caramel-like filling. My fingers were dusted with confectioners sugar, and I suspect my lips were as well.
Traffic prevented us from checking out the shed behind the restaurant to see if Tyler hid there. After talking to Tyler’s friend Chris this afternoon, I’d texted Dante to set one or two of his cronies at both Tyler’s apartment and the shed. On the ride down to Santa Ana, he reported that his people hadn’t seen Tyler at either location. While I drank strong coffee, he conferred with his confederates outside the restaurant and shook his head at me. Still no Tyler in the shed.
The man that the police had termed a “person-of-interest” in Tyler’s disappearance was late. The restaurant was surrounded by other small businesses and tiny cafes and faced a two-block-long, four-level parking structure
. If anyone was spying on me, bus benches on the street or the top level of the parking structure would make good locations to do so.
Not that I felt anyone watching me. Even the wait staff inside the restaurant appeared to have little interest. Dante on the sidewalk with his beefier two colleagues drew the attention. Other males passing on the sidewalk and the owner inside the restaurant studied the three uneasily; young females whispered and giggled in small clutches at a nearby bus stop, their gazes locked on Dante like tractor beams.
Fine with me to be dismissed. Talk about covert operations—I’d discovered that nearly everyone ignored a forty-something-year-old woman. The CIA should take note. Middle-aged females disappeared in any environment like no one’s business, attracting no second glances, fading into the air like vapor.
From the sidewalk, Dante cleared his throat. I pushed away my dessert plate, one alfajore slipping across its surface. He nodded discreetly at a young man sprinting across the street. Ah, my person-of-interest had arrived.
“Pamela Graft?” he asked. Up close, I saw that he was more likely in his late thirties than early twenties as he appeared from a distance. He raked fingers through his bronze streaked black hair, his eyes shifting left and right. His gaze landed on Dante and his two cohorts but the three faced slightly away. Tightly wound, he looked over my shoulder.
“Pam Graff,” I corrected him. I offered my hand more to see if he’d dare take it. After an awkward handshake, he sat across from me. He mumbled a “no, thanks” when I offered the cookie. When the waitress appeared, her gaze darted between Dante on the other side of the patio fence and our table as she poured more coffee for me and took a coke order from Lance Dolan.
“They cleared me, you know.” He spoke as soon as the waitress left the patio.
“I know.” I dabbed my lips and wondered if any powdered sugar remained. As Dolan’s regard rarely landed on me, I decided it didn’t matter.
“You knew Tyler Hinshaw, correct?”
He hunched over the small table. “Not really. I sometimes did contract work for a lawyer Ty knew. I mean, I saw the kid in the lawyer’s waiting room a couple of times when I reported in.”
“What kind of contract work?” I asked.
His gaze fixed on his coke glass. “Confidential stuff. I can’t talk about it.”
When other people stepped behind the classified protection of their work, like doctors, lawyers and defense contractors, their tone turned either provocative or condescending. Dolan’s voice went wooden.
“What was the lawyer’s name?” I asked.
He slid a glance at my hands and then to the floor. What worried him? It couldn’t be me.
“It’s in the police report,” he muttered.
I smiled, totally wasted on someone staring at the concrete, but hoped he would hear it in my voice. “I’ve forgotten his name.”
He glanced up and down again so fast that I might have missed it if I hadn’t been studying him from his wary face to his worn loafers.
“Mitch Weller,” he said grudgingly.
“Right. Good ole Mitch. Did you know he helped coach a lacrosse team?”
Still avoiding my gaze, he shrugged. “He coached a few teams. He likes sports.”
“Or young kids.” I gauged his reaction. He flinched.
I added, “Did he share your interest in children?”
“I don’t …”
“Save it, Lance. Once a pedophile, always a pedophile. I asked if …”
He rose, not anger but fear moved him. I’d gone too far, but I had a teacher’s rage against such predators. Even before I’d lost my impulse control, I would have found it hard to address him civilly.
I shook my head at Dante. He and his colleagues had stiffened when Lance stood. Dante took a step in our direction. I forced myself to tap the pedophile’s wrist in gentle restraint. “I apologize, Mr. Dolan. I spoke out of turn. I meant to say that I’m not interested in any accusations against you. I believe as the police did that you had nothing to do with Tyler’s disappearance twenty months ago. I’m asking if Mitch Weller enjoyed the company of children as you do.”
He slowly returned to his seat, and a defeated expression etched hollows in his face. “Not the way you mean. In his line of work, adoptions and custody suits, he saw a lot of kids, mostly unhappy children from bad places. I think he coached so he could see normal kids. To cancel out what he saw in his job.”
I reminded myself that predators spent time studying their victims. They looked for ways to cull them from their safe environments. “You see much of these at-risk kids working for Weller?”
He shook his head. “Like I started to say, I do nothing that takes me close to children. I won’t go back to prison, and I’m being watched all the time.” Again his gaze skittered from the parking structure across the street to Dante to people passing on the sidewalk.
“That’s rough,” I said insincerely. “You know what Tyler did for Weller at the office?”
“I didn’t pay much attention to him.” I heard the lie behind the words. With Dolan’s predilections, he’d be sharply aware of the boy. He added with more truth, “I didn’t see him there more than a half dozen times. I think Weller might have used him as a gofer when he got busy. He didn’t have much staff. Just a secretary, a part time bookkeeper who worked mostly from home, and me who he used from case to case.”
“You had more contact with Tyler than just seeing him in the waiting room, right?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “Mitch ran late with a client once so he asked me to take the kid to his folk’s house. I should have refused, but Mitch was in a jam and the kid needed to get home. I took him straight there. We didn’t even talk.”
Without me asking, he added, “That was about a month before he went missing.”
“And he disappeared near here, right?”
He swallowed again. “While I was dropping off some papers at the courthouse, I spotted him cross the street at the corner. Mr. Weller’s office is close by, so I thought he’d been picking up lunch for them. When the police talked to Mitch, I mentioned catching a glimpse of him about noon. Mitch said the boy didn’t show at the office that day so it turned out that I was the last person to see him. I spent hours at the station being grilled about it.”
I studied him. He’d pushed away from the table again. If he’d been accused of anything else, I might have pitied him.
“You never saw Tyler again?” I asked.
He shook his head. I couldn’t see his expression, but I believed him.
“Thank you, Mr. Dolan, for meeting with me. May I get you another coke?”
Relieved that it was over, he shot to his feet. “Thanks, but I should go. I still work for Weller, you know.”
I did know. This time I didn’t offer my hand. Dante joined me and we watched Lance flee across the boulevard. The strong streetlight lit the way like it was midday.
In truth, I was surprised he’d met with me. Since his name was on specific watch lists, maybe he felt he had to answer my questions.
“Man’s got issues,” Dante said. “Too nervous for my taste. What’d you say he did?”
“I didn’t. Why do you think he did anything?”
“He looks guilty. But sometimes the innocent ones got no guile and the guilty ones look pure as a lamb. Like me.”
I ignored the commentary. “He was the last person to see Tyler Hinshaw before he went missing two years ago.” I didn’t add that Tyler’s friend Chris claimed to have seen Tyler more recently.
Dante nodded sagely. “That explains it. Being the last to see someone before they disappear would make anyone feel guilty.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Porch side second dinner with signs
While Dante drove me back to my condo, he brainstormed ideas for his next “project.”
“I gotta a friend whose bar ain’t making a dime.” Dante tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs His gaze flicked to the rearview mirror so often,
I wondered if trouble trailed us. An occupational hazard for criminals? “I figure we could do a Collier there. In less than a month, we’d be breaking even. In a year, we could retire. You in, Ms. Graff?”
“Seems like the last time we did a Collier, the police were on us in days. I am so not in.”
None of his ideas appealed to me. Maybe because my brain was growing less criminal? Maybe because it didn’t sound like his heart was in it? Either way, I only half listened. My thoughts were still on the Tyler Hinshaw case.
I regretted not making an appointment with Weller. I had thought it better if I surprised him at home or at a game. Too late now. His office was most likely closed on Saturdays, and I had the Tustin/East Placentia peewee match to watch in the morning.
Hours ago, I had too little to do. Now too much. Go figure.
“Or we could do a magic show,” Dante said. “You know, the stage kind? Do it right and we could make millions. What do you think about that?”
I saw an egret flying along the sycamores on Lakeview near the freeway. Majestically it sailed low over the northbound traffic, angled sharply up, and roosted in a tree. Now that I searched for it, I could see other egrets through the leaves.
Hallucination? Maybe not. I’d seen egrets in those trees for years, even before the accident.
“How would you do a magic show?” Why had I asked?
“You leave that to me.” His voice timbre changed, charged with professional confidence. “I got a guy who’s a master illusionist, and he works with Knopf, a prop guy who’s a genius. Remember when we did a Stidham on that doctor in Del Mar? That gadget we used for sample testing was Knopf’s design.”
“What would you want me to do?” Was I seriously considering another con with Dante? It was fine a year ago, before therapy and healing had curbed the worst of my impulse control issues. Joining him now was just crazy. Not to mention all sorts of illegal.
He settled deeper into the driver seat. “It’ll be a big operation, ma’am. Our biggest yet, so you got lots to choose from. Anything from behind the scenes jobs like finance, contracting vendors, even working with Knopf. You’d like that last one, right? It’d remind you of your engineering days.”
Egrets, I've Had a Few (Deluded Detective Book 2) Page 4
